Since the beginning of this year, the entire world has seen a rise in prices which caused panic and surprise among people; however, the inflation we are observing these last months is not a surprise to those who have seen the monetary and fiscal policy of the governments around the world since the pandemic started. With the excuse of the virus, States have implemented huge spendings which were financed, at least in part, by printing money and other expansionist policies and the results are clear now.

“What starts here changes the world.”

The University of Texas at Austin’s motto not only applies to the research university’s overall impact on world affairs, but also to the outsized role cultural and political developments within the United States have on the rest of the planet.

CNN touts San Jose as being “poised to take a step closer to first-in-the-nation gun ownership requirements.” At first, I had thought that the poorly worded headline must be mistaken, as there are cities, such as Kennesaw, GA, that have required residents own guns. In San Jose’s case, “gun ownership requirements” means paying an annual tax and being required to purchase insurance to exercise the right (privilege?) to own a firearm.

The answer to the question of Adolf Hitler’s position on private ownership and nationalization appears to be fairly simple. It is generally accepted that Hitler recognized private ownership of the means of production and rejected nationalization. To leave it at that, as is generally done, would mean being superficial because this statement is far too undifferentiated and leaves too many questions unanswered. In my book Hitler’s National Socialism I analyze the dictator’s economic and sociopolitical thinking.

In December 2021, the US unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent from 4.2 percent in the month before. The number of unemployed individuals fell by 500,000 to 6.3 million. Many commentators have expressed satisfaction with the decline in unemployment. According to commentators, the fall in unemployment is indicative of a strong economy.

Why do individuals assign a greater value to gold than to bread, when bread seems to be more “useful” than gold? To provide an answer to this question economists refer to the law of diminishing marginal utility. The concept of diminishing marginal utility is the essential building block of economics. There is, however, a difference in the way this law is discussed by mainstream economics and the Austrian school of economics.

François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), who took on the name Voltaire after one of his imprisonments for running afoul of French authorities, was a poet, writer, philosopher and historian of the French enlightenment.

In my day-to-day interactions with others, I generally find myself, as a libertarian, far closer to those who would call themselves conservatives than those on the left. It is probably because those I know are far less likely to openly and baldly advocate for invading others’ “life, liberty and estates,” as John Locke phrased it, than the left.

Labor shortage “fun” fact:Inflation-adjusted weekly median earnings JUMPED in the 2nd quarter of 2020 (probably because so many low-wage workers got laid off), but have been steadily falling since then, and are now at the same level they were in the 4th quarter of 2019.

Meanwhile if we don’t adjust for inflation, we see the same jump in the 2nd quarter of 2020, followed by a gradual decline up to the end of 2020 – then a gradual increase.