The populist coalition in Italy has presented an “economic” program and a threat to the European Union that makes Greece look like a walk in the park.

Let us start with reality.

Italy’s economic problems are self-inflicted, not due to the Euro.

I remember two books from my adult pre-Rothbardian days: Bonfire of the Vanities, and Liar’s Poker. The first written by the recently departed Tom Wolfe, the second by Michael Lewis, who recalled telling his daughter on the way to interview Mr. Wolfe in 2015, “I want at least one of my children to meet him.

“I need a witness!” exclaimed the security screener at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Because I had forgotten to remove my belt before going through a scanner, he explained, I must undergo an “enhanced patdown.” I told him that if he jammed his hand into my groin, I’d file a formal complaint. So he summoned his supervisor to keep an eye on the proceedings.

Whenever the Supreme Court’s end-of-the-term “announcement season” comes around, I am reminded of the importance of handling precedent correctly under a Constitution that is supposed to remain “the supreme law of the land.” Such a result requires that courts actively maintain constitutional rights against government overreaching, meaning that divergent precedents must not be allowed to preempt the Constitution.

Long ago, in a universe of sane fiscal policy far away, there existed an institution, then new to the world of international banking and finance, called the Federal Reserve Bank, whose primary concern of the day—the day being its founding on December 13, 1913—was to have very large reserves of cash backed by even larger reserves of gold that were enough “to earn the public trust.” It was an unusual kind of organization, where crude, simplistic policy directives such as “safety and sound judgement”, “lawful money” and “normal monetary order” possessed none of the sophisticated reasoning of “

Much ink has been spilt in responding to the recent New York Times article extolling Marx’s economic, philosophical and historical contributions (Jason Barker: “Marx was Right“).

1 The process of lending and the uninterrupted flow of credit to the real economy no longer rely only on banks, but on a process that spans a network of banks, broker-dealers, asset managers, and shadow banks funded through wholesale funding and capital markets globally. - Pozsaret et al., 2013, p. 10

JEFF DEIST: What makes you optimistic, what makes you pessimistic about what you see in the US?

RON PAUL: Well, if I look at the big picture including a long span of time, I would say conditions aren’t that bad, even though I often talk about all the bad things I anticipate and how it could get worse in terms of the economy and foreign policy.