Most economists consider the use of sophisticated mathematical and statistical methods key to understanding the complexities of economics.

By means of mathematical and statistical methods, an economist establishes relationships between variables. For example, personal consumer outlays are related to personal disposable income and interest rates. Most economists would present this relation as a mathematical function:

C=a*Yd – b*i

Last week, the Federal Reserve responded to Wall Street’s coronavirus panic with an “emergency” interest rate cut. This emergency cut failed to revive the stock market, leading to predictions that the Fed will again cut rates later this month.

Economic fluctuations, also known as business cycles, are seen as being driven by mysterious forces that are difficult to identify. Finn Kydland and Edward C.

Global policymakers moved to ease public anxiety over the coming economic hit from the coronavirus as analysts warned of a severe slowdown in growth and a possible recession if the virus continues to spread. The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates on Tuesday, March 3, in an emergency move designed to shield the world’s largest economy from the impact of the coronavirus. The central bank said it was cutting rates by a half percentage point to a target range of 1.00 to 1.25 percent.

It remains unclear how much the stock market implosion of recent days will affect the larger economy. As David Stockman has noted often, the Wall Street economy is not synonymous with the Main Street economy, contrary to what the advocates of rampant bank bailouts and financialization would have us believe.

Nevertheless, fear of a general crisis has driven Donald Trump to hint that tax cuts should be on the table.

Today’s stock of progressive politicians seeks “bold” action to combat the laundry list of ills of which they believe the United States is guilty. From perpetuating economic racism to environmental racism to criminal justice racism to healthcare racism, as Elizabeth Warren noted during the July 2019 Democratic debate, the list that needs “solving” is endless.

[This article is part of the Understanding Money Mechanics series, by Robert P. Murphy. The series will be published as a book in 2021.]

Many anticapitalist ideologies have long relied on the idea that capitalist oppressors use advertising to force/compel/trick people into purchasing goods and services “they don’t need.” Advertising, the theory goes, is a tool employed by the capitalists to exercise power against the workers. Left to their own devices, workers would save more money and only buy things they truly need. Workers would then use this savings to gain greater financial independence from the capitalists.

In Human Action, Mises states a principle that a number of students of Austrian economics dislike. In the years I have taught Human Action at the Rothbard Graduate Seminar, the same objection to Mises’s principle often comes up. It is a valuable objection to discuss in a column about philosophy, because it rests on a logical fallacy.

What is the principle that rouses so much opposition? Mises first contrasts a possible world with our own world: