The US financial markets have redcently experienced two milestones as the S&P 500 reached 3,000 on July 10th and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) crossed 27,000 the next day. The immense rise in the equity market is a remarkable feat from its lows following the mortgage crisis where the DJIA hit 6,507, and the S&P 500 fell to 676.53 on March 9, 2009, but Donald Trump has yet to be satisfied with this growth.
There is a changing of the guard at the European Central Bank this year with two important new appointments. Philip Lane, the governor of the Irish central bank, was appointed chief economist of the ECB back in June. And and the current head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, was recently nominated to succeed Mario Draghi as president of the ECB in November. By all accounts, she is a shoo-in: she is the ultimate insider, having served as French minister of finance before becoming director of the IMF, and she has cultivated excellent relations with the main players in European politics.
As a student of economics, I was forced to learn the mainstream economics, which means neoclassical and Keynesian economics.
JEFF DEIST: The last time the Mises Institute interviewed you was way back in 2001, for what was then called the Austrian Economics Newsletter. That interview discusses how you met Ludwig von Mises and read Human Action at a very young age.
The idea of price stability originates from the view that volatile changes in the price level prevent individuals from clearly seeing market signals as conveyed by changes in the relative prices of goods and services.
For instance, because of an increase in the demand for apples, the prices of apples increase relatively to the prices of potatoes. This relative price increase gives an impetus to businesses to lift the production of apples versus potatoes.
When Israel Leija, Jr. was picking up food at a drive-through in 2010, police officers approached his car to arrest him. Leija was guilty of violating his probation, and when the officers informed him that he was under arrest, he sped away. For the next twenty minutes, Leija led the police on a high speed chase.
Writing for Postmedia News, Craig Kielburger is concerned that Canadians are (a) not sufficiently committed to the task of recycling bottles, cans, paper, plastics etc., and (b) not willing to purchase recycled products in sufficient quantities to allow recycling businesses to be profitable.
