Dr. Gary Schlarbaum, one of our generous supporters, has again offered to match all donations received through December 7. That means your $10 donation becomes $20, your $25 donation becomes $50, and so on.

With a donation of $25 or more, you’ll receive a copy of Jeff Deist’s The Imposers and the Imposed Upon. And, thanks to Gary, your donation doubles. Please donate today.

Most Americans probably thought they would know who the President will be shortly after the ballot boxes closed. But after three weeks, the results are still somewhat in doubt. That has thrown a wrinkle into the usual pundit calendar, focused on what the loser should have done, what the winner did well and now should do, and other lessons to be learned. And I have noticed that our unusual circumstances have led to very little consideration of what would be wise, regardless of the ultimate winner.

In October, money supply growth fell slightly from September’s all-time high, although growth still remains at levels that would have been considered outlandish just eight months ago. October’s easing in money-supply growth comes after eight months of record-breaking growth in the US which came in the wake of unprecedented quantitative easing, central bank asset purchases, and various stimulus packages.

The entrepreneurs try to undertake only such projects as appear to promise profits. This means that they endeavor to use the scarce means of production in such a way that the most urgent needs will be satisfied first, and that no part of capital and labor will be devoted to the satisfaction of less urgent needs as long as a more urgent need, for whose satisfaction they could be used, goes unsatisfied.

Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union
by Richard Kreitner
Little, Brown, 2020
viii + 486 pages

A common way of understanding the history of welfare economics goes something like this. The British economist A.C. Pigou in his The Economics of Welfare (1920) argued that progressive taxes increase social welfare. By the law of diminishing marginal utility, as you accumulate more dollars, each new dollar is worth less to you than the previous one. Doesn’t it follow, then, that that if money is taxed away from a rich person and given to a poor person, total social welfare will go up?