After closing at 1.051 at the end of December 2016, the price of the Euro in US dollar terms settled at 1.2321 at the end of March this year – an increase of 17.2%.
But, a currency exchange rate appears to be moving in response to so many factors that it makes it almost impossible to ascertain where the exchange rate is likely to be headed.
When I travel to Argentina, I often hear from politicians that the tax wedge must be increased because “revenues are insufficient”.
The first question that comes to mind is what does “insufficient” mean. Argentina’s fiscal deficit problem has not been generated by a low tax burden, but by a confiscatory and excessive one.
The Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum 2017-2018 shows that Argentina is ranked 92 among the 138 countries analyzed. The most worrisome aspect is that Argentina’s tax burden is the highest of the 138 economies.
“It’s kind of hard to sell ‘trickle-down,’” he [David Stockman] explained, “so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really ‘trickle-down.’ Supply-side is ‘trickle-down’ theory.” [William Greider, “What David Stockman Said,” Washington Post (Nov.
Congratulations to Mises Scholar Timothy Terrell for being named the T.B. Stackhouse Professor of Economics at Wofford College.
As Wofford notes, “The T.B. Stackhouse Endowed Professorship of Economics was established in 1949 by the Wofford Board of Trustees in memory of Stackhouse, who graduated from Wofford in 1880 and resided in Columbia, S.C.”
Across the country we have seen Democrat-controlled states and cities announcing themselves as “sanctuaries” for immigrants in the opposition to policies handed down from the Trump administration.
While most of the headlines the Trump administration has made on foreign policy have tended to focus on Syria and North Korea, the President’s approach to Iran may end up being the most important. The appointment of infamous hawk John Bolton, whose career goal has been to spark regime change in Tehran, is understandably seen as an indicator that Trump may abandon his campaign rhetoric opposing regime change in the Middle East in the case of the Ayatollah.
On the Western Front a hundred years ago, a furious and decisive campaign was in progress. The great German Spring Offensive, often and rightly called the Ludendorff Offensive, was well into the process of launching about three million combat troops against the Allied lines. The Offensive would last from March 21 to July 18, 1918. The combined butcher’s bill for both sides in the three-month struggle would amount altogether to over a million and half men killed, wounded, captured, or missing. The twin objects of the German assault were to break the stalemate and end the war.
I am sorry to report that Leland Yeager passed away on April 23, at the venerable age of 93. Although he described himself as a “fellow traveler” rather than a full member of the Austrian School, he greatly admired Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard and made important contributions to Austrian theory.
In his essay, “Tautologies in Economics and the Natural Sciences,” he defended the deductive method of praxeology:
Taking a page straight out of 1984, Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, recently changed the definition of assault rifle to fit pro-gun control talking points.
Bre Payton of the Federalist highlights how the online dictionary modified the entry for “assault rifle” with the following definition:
