As I was listening to Fox News describe the expected victory of Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia gubernatorial race during the evening of November 2 and then to the happy talk that followed the next morning after Youngkin squeaked out a two-point victory, I kept thinking about how the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel described the French Revolution:

All thinking beings shared in the jubilation of this epoch. Emotions of a lofty character stirred men’s minds at that time … as if the reconciliation of heaven and earth were now first accomplished.

Previous sustained surges in consumer prices – otherwise described as big levies of inflation taxation - have brought in their wake episodes of monetary normalization. These have usually featured a “return to gold” or at least to monetary rules associated with the gold standard. The 2021-2 surge will likely prove an exception thanks in no small part to an unholy alliance between crypto and unsound money. The alliance spells trouble for the ideal of sound money.

Advocates for vaccine mandates—led by the Biden administration—are apparently unconcerned that the mandates are likely to drive down total employment and reduce access to government services. In many cases these are the same services that mandate-pushing politicians have always insisted are utterly “critical” and must be expanded. Instead, the party is taking the position that the drive for vaccination must be placed before all other values in society, including public safety and employment for working-class Americans.

After three decades of promarket reforms, extreme poverty in China has been virtually eradicated. So President Xi Jinping now has the leverage to shift his attention to reducing the wealth gap in Chinese society. In a speech to the Chinese Communist Party in August, Xi touted “common prosperity” for all Chinese as an essential requirement of socialism and modernization.

There are many good recommendations promoted by Austrian school economists for improving the economy. Although we enjoy successes periodically, most--such as deregulating trucking and airline pricing--involve eliminating previous government interventions. These successes are to be celebrated, of course. But no one can deny that government intervention into the economy has continued, despite these occasional success stories.

No Free Lunch: Six Economic Lies You’ve Been Taught and Probably Believe
by Caleb S. Fuller
Freiling Publishing, 2021. 110 pp.

In April 2021 the governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, said that the federal government printed an additional NGN 60 billion (60 billion naira) to be shared between all the states at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). This was denied by the minister of finance, Hajia Zenab Ahmed. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, was a bit more forthright. He said, “That is our job. To print is about lending money.

If people who torture animals are psychopaths, then what are government officials who use taxpayer dollars to fund animal torture? Many are asking this question in the wake of revelations that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci—high priest of the COVID cult—funded medical “research” involving the torture of puppies. This led “Fire Fauci” to trend on Twitter, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to call for his resignation.