Japan is now on its way to leaving the 2 per cent inflation standard, having been the last to join (in 2013). Accordingly, the Bank of Japan has scrubbed from its latest policy statement (end-April) all promise that the target will be met by any given time-line.
When studying the history of the Civil War, there are two things that become increasingly apparent about Abraham Lincoln. The first is that he is an incredibly enigmatic figure. His views are ambiguous, often by design as he navigated a political environment that had been torn apart and reassembled with a fragile new party, in which Lincoln had been launched from obscurity into a position of leadership. His speeches were constructed carefully to try to find balance between the polar extremes that were only allied over weak agreements, such as opposition to territorial slavery.
Argentina suffered yet another so-called “currency crisis” last week. On Thursday and Friday the Argentine peso (ARS) depreciated 9% against the U.S. dollar (USD), falling from roughly 20.50 ARS per USD to 22.25 per USD. To stem the slide of the peso, Argentina’s central bank increased its target interest rate (the 7-day repo reference rate) from 30.5% to 40% over the course of two consecutive days. This came on the heels of a rate boost of 3-percentage points the previous week during which the bank also sold $5 billion in reserves.
For years there has been a struggle in the Eurozone between those that want to transform it into a transfer union and those that who want a Europe of independent and cooperating countries. The latter including Austria, Finland, the Netherlands and Germany want strict limits for deficits and debt brakes as envisioned in the Fiscal Stability Treaty.
For most experts the key factor that sets the foundation for healthy economic fundamentals is a stable price level as depicted by the consumer price index.
In this way of thinking, a stable price level ensures the visibility of the relative changes in the prices of goods and services.
Consequently, it is held, this leads to the efficient use of the economy’s scarce resources and hence results in better economic fundamentals.
This interview was originally published in the March 2018 issue of the Lara-Murphy Report.
A specter continues to haunt the world, the specter of Karl Marx. Two hundred years ago, on May 5, 1818, the father of twentieth century totalitarian communism, the guidebook writer of revolutionary mass-murdering dictatorship, and the inspirer of disastrous socialist central planning was born in Trier, Germany.
I have spent my whole adult life in the shadow of one man, Karl Marx.
By the age of 14, I recognized how important Marx was in history. I began to study some of his writings when I was a senior in high school. I continued to study him seriously in graduate school, and in 1968 my book on Marx was published.
