The current boom is heavily built on credit. This is because in today’s fiat money regime central banks, in close cooperation with commercial banks, increase the quantity of money by extending loans – loans that are not backed by ‘real savings’. The artificial increase in the supply of credit pushes market interest rates downwards – that is, below the levels that would prevail had there been no artificial increase in bank credit supply.

Every day, we as consumers, citizens, family members, and friends experience hundreds of examples of how our trust undergirds the world we live in, and how fragile the world can be when trust is violated or broken. We’ve all experienced relationships that have faltered and beliefs that have been challenged as the result of a moment that altered our trust in a person, institution, or even corporation. It’s something so basic that the average person likely spends little to no conscious thought about trust, and how it effects the efficiency of the world around them.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled the legal rights of members of the Crow tribe are not void simply because a US state tries to legislate them away.

In the case of Herrera v. Wyoming, the US Supreme court overturned the lower courts’ findings that tribal rights (established in an 1868 treaty with the United States government) in Wyoming had ceased when Wyoming became a state in 1890.

According to the case summary:

Over a year after reform advocates first began predicting swift legislative victory, the recreational use of cannabis remains illegal in New Jersey. When Governor Murphy and Senate President Sweeney agreed on a $42 per ounce flat tax in February, legalization supporters once again hoped for quick adoption of New Jersey Assembly Bill 4497 (“A4497”). Once again, the much-publicized March 25th vote was called off due to lack of support. Now legislators have a limited window to act before the state budget deadline on July 1st.

The principles of economic thought tells us that investments would flow to places with less capital accumulation, the reason being is that there would be less competition, thus a higher rate of return on investments. Indeed, as Adam Smith noted in the Wealth of Nations, capital accumulation would be the inevitable hindrance to economic growth.

Often we observe that two pieces of data, which are not supposed to have any relationship, appear to have very high visual correlation. For instance, we may discover strong correlation between the intensity of a dog barking and movements in stock prices. One is then tempted to take advantage of this discovery in order to make money in the stock market.