Mercantilism has had a “good press” in recent decades, in contrast to 19th-century opinion. In the days of Adam Smith and the classical economists, mercantilism was properly regarded as a blend of economic fallacy and state creation of special privilege.
Should we blame technology for the growth in healthcare spending? Austin Frakt, a healthcare economist who writes for the New York Times, thinks so. Citing several studies conducted over the last several years, he claims that technology could account for up to two-thirds of per capita healthcare spending growth.
When one takes a closer look at federal budgets over the past decade, one is sure to notice a watershed budget year: 2009.
This was the year that federal outlays increased by a whopping 18 percent (in inflation-adjusted dollars) from the previous fiscal year.
How to interpret this budget increase, however, remains controversial because both presidents Obama and Bush are responsible for portions of the budget. the 2009 budget is bipartisanship at its worst.
When in dealing with market phenomena we apply the term “power,” we must be fully aware of the fact that we are employing it with a connotation that is entirely different from the traditional connotation attached to it in dealing with issues of government and affairs of state.
To understand the principle that has been called Say’s Law, it is useful to start by thinking about what unhampered exchange is: the mutual offering of goods and services between people. Seeing exchange as a mutual offering shows demand-and-supply is not an unsolvable chicken-or-egg problem. People produce what in their best judgment they think others want, in the expectation that others are producing or will produce what they want. Production, in other words, is always speculative.
On Yellen’s Humphrey-Hawkins testimony, the Reuter’s headline says it best: ”Fed on course to raise interest rates at an upcoming meeting.” Translation: Fed continues on path to do something someday.
After nine years of outrageous, unwarranted and irrational monetary policy, some people are taking the current monetary regime as normal and natural — the new normal. You can see this on corporate ballot sheets, bank leverage, and the low personal savings rate.
Nowadays, references to the New Orleans flooding of 2005 often speak of the disaster as if Hurricane Katrina was the only reason the city flooded. Rarely mentioned is the failure of the levees built by the Army Corps of Engineers. In fact, incompetently built and poorly maintained government infrastructure was a major contributing factor in the severity and ultimate cost of the disaster.
For many, it has now become settled wisdom that the massive monetary pumping by the US central bank during and after the 2008 financial crisis saved the US and the world from another Great Depression. Hence Federal Reserve Chairman at the time – Ben Bernanke (AKA “Helicopter Ben”) – is considered the man that saved the world. Bernanke in turn attributes his actions to the writings of Professor Milton Friedman who blamed the Federal Reserve for causing the Great Depression of the 1930’s by allowing the money supply to plunge by over 30%.
Largely overlooked last week in the wake of President Donald Trump’s court battle was another controversial judicial ruling. On Thursday the US Court of Claims rewarding Moda Health, an Oregon-based health insurer, $214 million for losses it took participating in the high risk insurance pools established under the Affordable Care Act. The dispute came after Republicans eliminated funding for tax payer subsidies to those firms that lost money writing insurance for high risk individuals.
