Senior Fellow Alex Pollock On His New Book ‘Surprised Again!―The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble’
Mises Institute Senior Fellow Alex Pollock was at the American Enterprise Institute yesterday to discuss his new book Surprised Again!―The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble.
Perhaps of special interest are his comments on the manias, and the social effects of easy money, beginning around the 57-minute mark.
Central Banks: Profligacy in Lockstep
This article was originally published by Law&Liberty.
The Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) financial statements for the nine months ending September 30, 2022, show a bottom-line loss of US$150 billion.1 A number to get your attention!
January 6 Trials Remind Us Why We Must Abolish Seditious Conspiracy Laws
Total Employed Workers Fell Again in November as Savings and Incomes Fall
An Economist Examines US Foreign Policy and Finds It Wanting
Keynesian Policies Gave Us High Debt, Inflation, and Weak Growth
The evidence from the last thirty years is clear. Keynesian policies leave a massive trail of debt, weaker growth and falling real wages. Furthermore, once we look at each so-called stimulus plan, reality shows that the so-called multiplier effect of government spending is virtually nonexistent and has long-term negative implications for the health of the economy. Stimulus plans have bloated government size, which in turn requires more dollars from the real economy to finance its activity.
Global Rate Hikes Hit the Wall of Debt Maturity
More than ninety central banks worldwide are increasing interest rates. Bloomberg predicts that by mid-2023, the global policy rate, calculated as the average of major central banks’ reference rates weighted by GDP, will reach 5.5%. Next year, the federal funds rate is projected to reach 5.15 percent.
Tax Cuts Do Not Cause Inflation. Printing Does.
The narrative to attack any tax cut and defend any increase in government size is reaching feverish levels. However, we must continue to remind citizens that constantly bloating government spending and increasing the size of monetary interventions are some of the causes of the widespread impoverishment of the middle class. Constantly increasing taxes and diminishing the purchasing power of the currency is wiping out the middle class in most developed nations.
Why Investors Are Obsessed with the Fed “Pivot”
In a recent Bloomberg article, a group of economists voiced their fears that the Federal Reserve’s inflation fight may create an unnecessarily deep downturn. However, the Federal Reserve does not create a downturn due to rate hikes; it creates the foundations of a crisis by unnecessarily lowering rates to negative territory and aggressively increasing its balance sheet. It is the malinvestment and excessive risk-taking fuelled by cheap money that lead to a recession.
