Nobel laureate Paul Krugman took a victory lap on the pages of The New York Times in front of all who warned of impending runaway inflation from the Fed’s massive monetary expansion. He did more than pronounce them wrong.
The competitive market economy is a powerful institutional mechanism for bringing human ingenuity, energy and creativity to bear to improve both the material and cultural circumstances of multitudes of people around the world. Wherever relatively free market capitalism is operating, it succeeds in ending human poverty and brings about rising standards of living for hundreds of millions, indeed, now billions of people. Yet, it is argued that there are some things – “public goods” – that only government can effectively supply to everyone in society.
For college basketball fans, the excitement of “March Madness” is just around the corner. March marks the beginning of the mesmerizing three-week tournament to crown a college hoops champion, an event packed with buzzer-beaters, upsets, and office bracket pools across the nation.
Duke University’s basketball program, one of the traditional favorites to win the tournament, is also home to a unique tradition that can teach us a valuable economic lesson.
Though the Pentagon’s budget was already through the roof, it will get an extra $165 billion over the next two years, thanks to the congressional budget deal reached earlier this month. To put that figure in context, it was tens of billions of dollars more than Donald Trump had asked for last spring to “rebuild” the US military (as he put it). It even exceeded the figures, already higher than Trump’s, Congress had agreed to last December.
Today Jay Powell had his first appearance before Congress as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, confirming that his leadership at the Fed will look very similar to Janet Yellen. Though his testimony did note that 2018 has witnessed some volatility in the stock market and other assets, he maintained the same positive outlook of his predecessor.
Listen to Ryan McMaken’s commentary on the Radio Rothbard podcast.
In the wake of the Florida school shooting earlier this month, Broward County police deputies are being accused of hiding outside the school while students were being murdered inside.
Last year on the campaign trail, crowds roared when Donald Trump denounced his opponent as “trigger-happy” Hillary. But President Trump is rapidly incarnating the vice he condemned. Nowhere is this more evident than in Syria, where Trump’s recklessness risks dragging America into a major war.
The recently-passed big-spending budget deal’s failure to generate significant opposition from the “tea party” has led some to pen obituaries for this once-powerful movement. These commentators may have a point. However, few of them understand the true causes of the tea party’s demise.
In Friday’s article on Mexico homicides, I briefly mentioned the myth that Mexican homicides are driven by American guns. This myth drives so much of the rhetoric about Mexican crime, that it bears some examination in slightly more detail.
