Even though huge issues are still in doubt, Americans have largely survived an election full of serious ill will, hypocrisy, and ominous implications. However, in the process, we have accumulated a deficit of self-reflection and humor.
Over the past hundred years, evolutionary socialism has slowly but steadily taken root in the fabric of American society. This is especially noticeable in the economic sphere, because evolutionary socialism uses the mandatory redistribution of wealth as one of the methods to achieve its ultimate goal. The bloated state machine interferes with the economy, distorts market signals and economic relations between market agents, and chooses winners and losers in order to achieve an illusory and propagandistic goal of equality and justice.
Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) are being sold with the narrative of protecting consumers who are increasingly moving to cashless payments. Some say that these cashless payments will rob us of the privacy advantages of cash while exposing us to bank runs, payment network blackouts, and foreign financial adversaries.
Yet while these risks are real, they would be negligible had it not been for the central banking and financial regulators’ interventions into the market. CBDCs make these interventions worse and introduce some new, much bigger ones.
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On July 2, 2019, President Donald Trump nominated Mrs. Judy Shelton to join the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. She has a distinguished career as an economist and even co-authored a book called Roads to Sound Money, which supports ideas such as sound money and individual liberty.
While GMU economist Tyler Cowen may have dismissed the idea of more pandemic lockdowns as being “a straw man” and saying that the extreme measures that started in March of this year “are now behind us,” it seems that governors and other politicians around the country have failed to get the message. More and more states have begun to once again impose ruinous lockdowns.
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