As Yellen and the rest of the Fed cohorts talk rising interest rates and balance sheet shrinkage, Trump makes it clear: the dollar is too strong. As such, he opposes the Fed’s recent efforts on interest rate policy. He likes low interest rates. This makes sense — politicians love cheap debt — though it is a sad deviation from his more critical stance on financial bubbles during his candidacy years.
Will Grigg, full name William Norman Grigg, passed away today after a series of hospitalizations. He was much too young to leave us.
Will was a dedicated voice for liberty, and a prolific writer and blogger on the subjects of police misconduct and police militarization. An archive of the many articles he wrote for LewRockwell.com is here. He also appeared on our Mises Weekends show discussing the growing police state.
By now, most of us have finished our binge-watch of Netflix’s latest Marvel series Iron First. Billionaire Danny Rand gets stranded in the Himalayas at the age of ten after a plane crash and is raised by warrior monks who turn him into a superhero sworn to fight against the evil Hand organization. I am a mega-geek when it comes to anything Marvel, and my Austrian economics loving libertarianism is generally on hibernate mode until I’ve completed my twelve-hour marathon of these shows.
Donald Trump campaigned on the economic issues of international trade, immigration, and jobs. He condemned international trade, immigrants, and the economic policies of countries such China and Mexico. As such, he should be made an honorary member of the mid-19th century “Know Nothing” political party.
Every day that passes brings further evidence, in the marvelous phrase of Bill Kauffman in Chronicles, of “the enormous gulf between those who live in America and those who run it.” We who live in America are firmly convinced that we are taxed far too much, that government spending and taxation are eating out our substance to support a growing parasitic army of crooks and moochers, and that the accelerating burden of government has caused our economy to stagnate over the last two decades.
Echoing the thoughts of Yellen and other Fed members, the Dallas Fed’s Robert Kaplan indicated that the $4.5 trillion balance sheet should begin the scale-back process this year. “Gradually and patiently” was the phrase used, as they are ever wary of a tantrum on Wall Street. Reuters reports:
When Alexis de Tocqueville set forth his observations on American democracy, he began his story with a description of township government.
After eight years of extremely loose monetary policy, the economy is great again and we are to enter into a post-stimulative era of monetary policy. So said Yellen at a recent discussion at the University of Michigan. In her words, the Fed had given the economy all the “oomph [they] possibly could” and it was time to “allow” the economy to coast along.
The late Murray Rothbard thought war and peace was the most important libertarian issue. He argued that war was justified only in response to a direct attack. Interventions abroad to advance supposed American interests or values serve only to advance the power of the Leviathan State and ought to be entirely rejected. By this measure, US foreign policy in the 20th and early 21st centuries has been a disaster. Interventionism, nation building, and wars of choice have caused enormous damage and increased the State’s power, just as Rothbard foresaw. Last weekend, Dr.
In February, David Stockman pointed out that the Trump administration appears none too interested in addressing many of the economic issues that Trump claimed would be at the center of his administration. Instead, Stockman noted, Trump spent all his time obsessing over his travel ban — which he still can’t get beyond the courts — and other non-economic issues. Stockman noted:
