Last month (August 14, 2019), the spread between the 10 year treasury yield and the 2 year treasury yield inverted. If you believe the headlines, this traditional recession indicator caused the markets to sell off with the Dow Jones closing with an 800 point loss (-3.1%) with the S&P 500 also losing 85 points (-2.9%).

So what is the yield curve and why does everyone worry that it signals a recession?

AI development has morphed into a geopolitical race with China and the United States in a dead heat to be the victor. While the 20th century may be widely thought of as the American century, the 21st will be defined by the leader in this pivotal technology. At least, that’s the impression given by most commentators and echoed in Kai-Fu Lee’s recent book, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order.

Kamala Harris wants you to join her cult. But don’t worry: membership is voluntary — that is, unless a plurality of your fellow voters wants to join, in which case you’ll be automatically enrolled.

There has been increasing talk of a burgeoning recession, whether because of a historically rare decade-long economic expansion or recent reports of an inverted yield curve, which is traditionally an indication of a downturn. Any recession is hard on all Americans, but it can be particularly devastating for entrepreneurs, who often have more to lose. Not only does an economic ebb add to the uncertainty of owning and running a business, but it also means opportunities become scarcer, with fewer potential partners willing to invest, consume and otherwise enter into deals.

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Who are they? People just like you. Average people who happen to care deeply about human liberty and human flourishing. People who care about real economics. People who oppose state power, central banks, and war. People who care about truth and honest history.

When an economy turns from expansion to contraction there is an order of events. The first signs are an unexpected increase in inventories of unsold goods, both accompanied with and followed by business surveys indicating a general softening in demand. For monetarists, this is often confirmed by an inverting yield curve, which tells them that at the margin the short-term rates set by the central bank are becoming too high for business conditions.

If there is a global recession brewing —and the probability is increasing — Spain will suffer and might enter a recession of its own.

Let’s look at the leading indicators in Spain.

First, Spain has grown the most among European countries since the last recession ended in 2013, especially since 2014, although Spain’s decline in economic activity prior to 2014 was also much more pronounced. We can also see that the Spanish economy was growing much more rapidly than the Eurozone economy before 2009.

Canada’s socialized health care is a failure, as measured against the service the government promised to provide. Tom Kent, the senior government policy person when the Medical Care Act was passed in 1966, described the government’s objectiv : “The aim of public policy was quite clearly and simply ... to make sure that people could get care when it was needed without regard to other considerations.”

The idea of a “third way” in economic policy has fascinated politicians, scholars, artists, and the voters around the world. Surfing this wave, the welfare state has spread quickly in recent decades.

Some even say that Nordic countries are the definitive evidence that it is possible to deliver a prosperous and egalitarian society through state intervention, mixing free markets with high taxes in order to get high living standards and a smaller inequality gap. But is the matter really settled?