In most countries, numerous government welfare programs provide benefits (often means-tested) to eligible recipients. Whether these payments arise from unemployment compensation, child tax credits, old age pensions, or a myriad of other programs, the outcome is the same: recipients receive guaranteed payments. The ultimate goal of many poverty warriors is a Universal Basic Income (UBI), often promoted as a supposedly cheaper alternative to the numerous welfare programs it is intended to replace.

With the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protests raging for more than three months, the European Union’s viability as a political entity has come into question.

Indeed, the EU has gone through a whirlwind of economic and political upheavals since the eurozone crisis of 2009. In 2016, the EU experienced a political earthquake when the Brexit referendum occurred, and British voters decided that it was time for the UK to leave the EU.

On October 17, 2018, recreational marijuana was legalized in Canada, ending 95 years of prohibition. For those who believe, as I do, that individuals should have the freedom to determine their own consumption, this is good news. However, I am not congratulating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party for making good on a campaign promise made three years earlier. Instead, I point out the inconsistency of not applying their rationale for pot legalization to the legalization of all drugs.

According to the Modern Money Theory (MMT), money is a thing that the State decides upon. Following the ideas of the German economist Georg Knapp, the MMT simply regards money as a token. For instance, when an individual places a coat in the cloakroom of a theatre, he receives a tin disc or a paper receipt. This receipt or a disc is a proof that the individual is entitled to demand the return of his coat. The token was labeled by Knapp as chartal or a pay token.

As the economic contagion of the global financial crisis was spreading from country to country in 2007, it was frequently noted that the mainstream economics profession seemed to be just as much in the dark about the true causes of the crisis as were the general public. In place of anything incisive and theoretically grounded, most people were forced to make do with vague hand-waving and metaphors to explain the crash, with one particularly well-worn bromide sticking out in my own memory as almost the defining phrase of the crisis: “When America sneezes, the whole world gets sick.”

Life after death for asset inflation: this is what happens when “speculative fever” remains high even after monetary inflation has paused. This may well have been the situation in global markets during 2019 so far. But history and principle suggest that life after death in this monetary sense is short.

On January 30, Rep. John Larson and 200 Democratic co-sponsors introduced the Social Security 2100 Act. Portrayed as giving retirees long-overdue benefit increases, it would actually add another step to Social Security’s long-running Ponzi scheme.

Despite Democrats’ history of rejecting that term for Social Security, it has been the biggest series of Ponzi schemes in history, redistributing tens of trillions of dollars of wealth to earlier recipients from subsequent generations.

A nationwide system of gun registration could be a step toward national gun confiscation. However, antigun bureaucrats need not go that far to use the expanded background check system to abuse the rights of gun owners. Gun owners could find themselves subject to surveillance and even harassment, such as more intensive screening by the Transportation Security Administration, because they own “too many” firearms.

During a recent trip to Mexico City, Jeff Deist was able to join Sergio Sarmiento of TV Azteca’s adn40 for a great discussion on the meaning of liberty and the power of markets.

The interview is available here.

Another Boeing 737 crashed Sunday in Ethiopia, killing all 157 aboard. This is the second crash of the new Boeing model Max 8 since October. Investigators have only begun sorting out this tragedy but some experts suggest that the plane’s automated safety software may have prevented the pilot from preventing the fatal plunge.

If software and sensors designed to prevent crashes actually increased the risk of catastrophe, then the Boeing accidents are another reminder that safety policies can have unintended fatal consequences.