The Igbos are one of many ethnic groups within Africa.

The 4.2 percent Consumer Price Index (CPI) bounce for April sent a chill through some traders and financial commentators who had expected a tamer number like a 3.6 or 3.9 percent from last year’s covid price level air pocket. 

An important impediment to understanding valuable insights economists have to offer is that they have trained people to ignore their pronouncements on efficiency. Economists’ common use of a standard of efficiency known as “potential compensation,” which is at odds with a more important concept in which efficiency is advanced whenever there is a Pareto improvement (named after Vilfredo Pareto), is a major reason.

Expansionary monetary and fiscal policies have gone into overdrive all over the world since the beginning of the pandemic. This raises the obvious question of how long they can last before another crash follows.

The Small Business Administration creation of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RFA) under the American Rescue Plan Act is another government program in response to the covid pandemic that has the potential for abuse and misuse, similar to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

As the face of the organization, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell should bear the brunt of anyone’s perturbation over the central bank’s anti-capitalism stance. However, it’s not just Powell who seems to be out of touch with the majority of Americans. On Thursday, the newest Fed Governor, Christopher J. Waller, gave a speech on his outlook and monetary policy at Drexel University.

Some readers might enjoy this this interview I conducted conducted with Václav Klaus, the former Prime Minister of Czech Republic, on the current Covid-19 situation and the prospect for human freedom. He has a rich perspective and experience having spent most of his life under a communist system and shares his views freely.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

According to mainstream thinking, economic slumps are caused by various shocks. This means that these slumps are caused by unexpected events, which by implication are not known beforehand. Obviously if causes behind various shocks cannot be known in advance, it makes sense to look at various symptoms of the emerging economic slump. Based on the symptoms, experts could introduce measures to prevent the economy from declining into an economic recession.