Egalitarian ethics are pervasive in our society, despite a multitude of logical problems. So popular is the idea that an inequality of wealth is a problem, that politicians such as Bernie Sanders have — ironically and hypocritically — become millionaires by appealing to these ideas. The phrases “income gap” and “wealth distribution” have gained wide currency in political parlance.

In 1987 in an interview with “Woman’s Own” Margaret Thatcher said ,

“They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.”

ZeroHedge recently reported an interesting trend occurring in the United States.

In the last few months, proponents of civil asset forfeiture reform have witnessed promising victories.

[From “More Than Quibbles: Problems with the Theory and History of Fractional Reserve Free Banking“ in the spring 2019 issue of The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.]

[From “Taking Government Out of Politics: Murray Rothbard on Political and Local Reform during the Progressive Era“ by Patrick Newman in the spring 2019 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.]

For most experts the central bank determines short-term interest rates by setting the target to the benchmark policy rate such as the federal funds rate in the US. Many economists are of the view that through the manipulation of short-term interest rates, the central bank by means of expectations regarding future interest rate policy can also dictate the direction of long-term interest rates. By this way of thinking, expectations regarding future short-term interest rates are instrumental in setting the long-term rates (and long-term rates are an average of short-term rates).

The European Central Bank’s recent move away from the exit from ultra-loose monetary policy has revived the debate on Europe’s potential “Japanification.” The Japanese scenario is gloomy. Since the bursting of the Japanese bubble in the early 1990s, growth has been stagnating, wage levels have been falling, and an increasing number of people has been forced into precarious employment. The so-called Abenomics, an immense Keynesian spending program financed by the central bank, has failed so far to jumpstart the ailing economy.