Mexico finds itself in the middle of an energy debate. En bloc, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), seeks to nationalize the electricity industry.

One of the realities that nullifies persistent interpretations of the European colonization of the Americas as a cataclysm of subjugation is the existence of state exploitation in the precontact New World. As I have recently shown, many common Indians lived in banal slavery to a political class—the same servitude that every “citizen” of a state lives under, compelled to labor for the benefit of others, albeit with its own unique packaging and set of justifications.

The annoyance of government edicts, no matter how petty, challenge my emotional equilibrium in a manner different from the various vagaries of life. Sure, I do not want to experience something such as a flat tire, but neither do I want to deal with pointless tasks required to satisfy a whim of the state, though, in the balance, the former I accept like a mosquito on a hot summer’s night, while the latter aches like a hammer to my thumb.

I have taught economics long enough that I have made use of a variety of “trick” questions in introductory courses. I have found them, used well, to be pedagogically helpful. But not everyone agrees.

One of the mandates of the Federal Reserve System is to attain price stability. It is held that price stability is the key as far as economic stability is concerned. What is it all about?

The idea of price stability originates from the view that volatile changes in the price level prevent individuals from seeing market signals as conveyed by changes in the relative prices of goods and services.

For the Wall Street sequel, the subtitle was Money Never Sleeps. But the Oliver Stone reprisal of Gordon Gecko was the stuff of 2010. In America, a decade plus ago, money slept. Now, it truly doesn’t, with cryptocurrency prices gyrating 24/7/365. This frantic activity has spread to other asset markets.

High oil prices are a symptom of economic and monetary imbalances, not just a consequence of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decisions. Throughout history, we have seen how OPEC cuts have done little to elevate prices when diversification and technology added to rising efficiency.

Likewise, OPEC output increases do not necessarily mean lower prices, let alone reasonable ones. Increased OPEC output helps but does not solve price issues, even if they would probably like to.

Why Does Inequality Matter?
by T.M. Scanlon
Oxford University Press, 2018, 170 pp.

We must reduce government power to a bare minimum, or the next threat to our security will lead to an even greater loss of individual freedoms.

With inflation running at over 6 percent and interest rates on savings near zero, the Federal Reserve is delivering a negative 6 percent real (inflation-adjusted) return on trillions of dollars in savings. This is effectively expropriating American savers’ nest eggs at the rate of 6 percent a year. It is not only a problem in 2021, however, but an ongoing monetary policy problem of long standing. The Fed has been delivering negative real returns on savings for more than a decade.