I live in exactly the right location to see the outcome of a grand experiment. The pilot Walmart Supercenter is located in Dallas, Georgia. So am I.

On Friday the 13th, the CEO of Walmart cut the ribbon at the grand opening. Sadly, I only learned about this grand opening on the morning of September 14. There had been no publicity while the store was being remodeled over the last 12 months.

So, what you are about to read is based on original research conducted on the cheap on the afternoon of September 14.

The founders of classical economics, namely David Hume (1711-1776), Adam Smith (1723-1790), and David Ricardo (1772-1823) and their British followers were fervent advocates of the principle of free trade between nations. Even more so were J.-B. Say (1767-1832), Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) and their Continental disciples of the liberal school (who for simplicity I will broadly classify as classical economists because of their link to Adam Smith). Despite their devotion to free trade, the classical economists were nationalists.

“If an archeological seeker of the origins of the socialization of risk in high finance wants to find clues, let him or her begin with an excavation of Lombard Street.”

-- James Grant, Bagehot, p. 268

Mastercard, one of the big players now looking at this new money, is starting a cryptocurrency team.

“Do you have the desire to work at the cutting-edge intersection of payments and cryptocurrencies,” MasterCard asks. Those hired will “monitor crypto currency ecosystem trends” and “develop new products and solutions.”

A credit card expert called it “a smart move.”

Governments can and do try to fix prices, but history tells us it never works.

From the price-control dikats of the Roman Empire’s Diocletian, to the wage and price controls of President Richard Nixon, governments have tried and failed.

Whenever a central bank introduces easy monetary policy, as a rule this leads to an economic boom — or economic prosperity. At least this is what most commentators hold. If this is however the case then it means that an easy monetary policy can grow an economy.

Back at the end of May, New York Post opinion editor Sohrab Ahmari wrote the essay that launched a thousand debates when the religious journal First Things published his anti-liberal polemic entitled “Against David French-ism”. While David French is certainly no libertarian, Ahmari identified him as the poster-boy for the classical liberal ideas that he believes have led to America’s spiritual collapse and are on the verge of bringing about a wave of Christian persecution.

Jeff Deist joins Rick Sanchez to weigh in on the European Central Bank’s introduction of negative interest rates and why it signals a global recession.

The eurozone crisis was highlighted by five countries: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Greece. These peripheral nations were deemed to be the culprits behind the eurozone crisis due to their overspending. Namely, they had caused excessive deficits, coupled with large debt levels. They were dubbed by the media as the “PIIGS”