There is severe confusion about the meaning of economic growth.  Many seem to mistakenly think that it has to do with GDP or producing stuff. It does not. Economic growth means that an economy’s ability to satisfy people’s wants, whatever they are--that is, to produce wellbeing -- increases.

GDP is a rather terrible way of capturing this using [public] statistics, and is thus corrupted by those benefiting from corrupting such figures. GDP is not growth. 

Historian Ralph Raico was one of the great popularizers and scholars of European decentralism. That is, Raico recognized and supported the idea that Europe’s traditions in favor of human rights and limited political power grew out of Europe’s long history of decentralized and fragmentary politics. Many historians over the centuries, such as Lord Acton, have noted how Europe — not including Russia and its frontiers — differed from other civilizations of the time in its lack of any single, centralized political power.

Jeff Peshut answers the question that has been widely discussed in the media lately: Is There Really A Corporate Debt Bubble That’s Ready To Burst? 

The European Central Bank (ECB) is rumored to be planning a halt  to its four-year quantitative easing program at the end of this week when it will stop its asset purchases while continuing to keep interest rates at current near-zero levels through 2019. The Economist laments this ‘rash’ decision, arguing that the European economy is still ‘faltering’, showing only very feeble and unstable signs of growth.

Listen to Ryan McMaken’s commentary on the Radio Rothbard podcast.

Bloomberg reports this week that on Wall Street, men have started to implement office strategies that some managers and employees believe will minimize the likeliness of being accused of sexual harassment:

Austrian economists should take an interest in the so-called “replication crisis” in science, which is affecting primarily the field of psychology, but is likely under-recognized in other social sciences—and in economics in particular.

Once again Donald Trump’s presidency has done a great job of highlighting the hypocrisy and delusion of the beltway bubble.

A recent story from the Daily Beast reports that Trump is frustrating advisers with his apathy towards the current trillion dollar deficits coming out of Washington. 

In his speech to the Economic Club of New York on November 28 2018, the Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell said that the US central bank’s policy interest rate is just below the neutral rate. This prompted many commentators to suggest that a tighter interest rate stance of the Fed is likely coming to an end. At the end of October the fed funds rate target stood at 2.25%.