On the heels of a credit outlook downgrade for New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the state legislature have just declared war on the financial center’s vibrant gold bullion market.
Global credit ratings agency Moody’s dropped the Big Apple’s outlook from “stable” to “negative,” releasing a statement:
We hit an ignominious milestone recently when the national debt crossed $39 trillion. Naturally, regular citizens have chimed in about what’s to blame, who’s to blame, what can be done, or does it even matter. The discussion usually takes one or more of the following shapes.
The mysterious Giffen has once again risen from the ashes. In this iteration, it’s silver in the red-hot precious metals market. This so-called anomaly makes for a great story and interesting explanation, but it does not represent a genuine exception or a valid attack on the fundamental laws of economics. It is another example of the questionable scholarship of the Grand Wizard of Mainstream economics, Alfred Marshall.
War is the ultimate government intervention. It is the excuse for all kinds of evils to be imposed on the governed. From confiscation through taxes and inflation to restriction of freedom of speech and the redirection and even nationalization of whole industries, nothing increases state power such as war.
Corporations are frequently accused of moral indifference. Critics often portray large firms as institutions that pursue profit while ignoring the consequences of their actions. Such criticism rests on a simplistic view of how businesses actually behave. In practice, many corporations demonstrate that economic incentives do not eliminate moral judgment. The recent dispute between the United States government and the artificial intelligence company Anthropic illustrates this point clearly.
