The Next Generation of Fed Policymakers
Jay Powell is a continuation of the Yellen years, but he may be a slight improvement over Yellen’s complacency as a proponent of endless easy money. Would that there was someone at the Fed with the sensibilities of Paul Volcker...
Capital As a Form of Charity
Tools as a Form of Charity
Both fact and logic seem to me to support the view that savings invested in privately owned economic tools of production amount to an act of charity. And further, I believe it to be — as a type — the greatest economic charity of all.
By economic tools of production I mean, of course, things with exchange value — trucks, factories, railroads, stores — which assist human effort in the production of other items of economic worth.
Does saving and investment in these tools qualify as charity? Does it meet the three tests of an act of charity?
Leftist Billionaires Virtue-Signal on Tax Cuts
As happens every time any sort of tax change that can be demonized as “tax cuts for the rich” is proposed, the Trump administration’s framework for tax reform has been met with “tax me more” virtue signaling. The latest installment I have seen was “I’m a billionaire. Tax me more,” in the October 6 Los Angeles Times.
The Progressive Era
15. Herbert Hoover and the Myth of Laissez-Faire
1. Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce*
The conventional wisdom, of historian and layman alike, pictures Herbert Hoover as the last stubborn guardian of laissez-faire in America. The laissez-faire economy, so this wisdom runs, produced the Great Depression in 1929, and Hoover’s traditional, do-nothing policies could not stem the tide.
Drop All Federal Charges in Rand Paul Assault
Is it illegal to physically attack another person in Kentucky? If so, it’s unclear why there is any need or cause whatsoever for the involvement of federal authorities in Rand Paul’s recent altercation with a neighbor at this Kentucky home. Indeed, even if Paul had been murdered, there’d still be no reason to involve federal authorities.
Mainstream Economists Whitewashed the Evils of Communism
To “commemorate” the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution in Russian, I’ve been sharing a series of columns on the evil of communism.
Deficit Spending Is a Moral Issue
In a new report for the TaxPayers’ Alliance in the UK, Ben Ramanauskas makes an important point: deficit spending and government debt are moral issues, and not just matters for arcane economic theory.
