The message unanimously churned out by politicians, central bankers, and ‘mainstream’ economists is that central banks are there for the ‘greater good’. They provide the economy with sufficient money and credit, and they fight inflation, thereby supporting output and employment growth. What is more, central banks, are supposedly in a position to effectively fend off or at least mitigate financial and economic crises. However, unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

Fans of HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones know well the motto of House Stark: “Winter is Coming.” This motto warns of impending doom, whether brought on by the Starks themselves, devastating multi-year, cold weather, or something far more ominous north of the Wall.

In Tuesday’s Democratic primary, Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum shocked Florida politics by winning the party’s nomination. Trailing third place or lower for most of the campaign, Gillum received a significant late boost thanks to an enthusiastic activist base and the endorsements of national figures such as Bernie Sanders. A look at Gillum’s agenda though offers a great illustration of what moving towards the “democratic-socialist” left would mean for an economy.

[Editor’s note: our immigration roundtable is a series of articles presenting the views of prominent Austrian and libertarian thinkers. By necessity these articles provide only a basic overview of their various views, with links to original sources.]

An audio version of this article is available here.

On Monday, National Public Radio revealed that two-thirds of school shootings reported in 2015-2016 never actually happened.

Morning Edition reports:

This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, “nearly 240 schools ... reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting.” The number is far higher than most other estimates.

If we analyze the consensus expectations of analysts and investment banks at the end of 2017, the conclusion was unanimous: Buy Europe and emerging against the United States amid weakening US dollar estimates in 2018. And it has been exactly the opposite. I’ve already warned a few times about the risk of such a biased consensus towards a weak US dollar.

Mark Thornton recently joined CJ of the Dangerous History podcast to discuss his new book The Skyscraper Curse: And How Austrian Economists Predicted Every Major Economic Crisis of the Last Century, and his recent article on the government’s role in Florida’s recent red tide crisis. 

Listen here.

President Trump recently imposed sanctions on Turkey to protest the Turkish government’s detention of an American pastor. Turkey has responded by increasing tariffs on US exports. The trade war is being blamed for the collapse of Turkey’s currency, the lira. While the sanctions may have played a role, Turkey’s currency crisis is rooted in the Turkish government’s fiscal and (especially) monetary policies.