The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy
by Mervyn W. King
W.W. Norton & Co. 2016
xv + 431 pages

Former Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher recently gave a speech identifying the Federal Reserve’s easy money/low interest rate policies as a source of the public anger that propelled Donald Trump into the White House. Mr. Fisher is certainly correct that the Fed’s policies have “skewered” the middle class. However, the problem is not specific Fed policies, but the very system of fiat currency managed by a secretive central bank.

We’ve lived through another election season, and this year, as with every years, the candidates competed to tell us about all the ways they were going to use the power of government to make our lives better. Unfortunately, many voters appeared quite sympathetic to the idea that government action can improve living standards and generally make markets work better.

As we look at things that impress us technologically we also have a certain trepidation, because we’re told that robots are going to take our jobs. “Yes, the internet is wonderful,” we may say, “but robots, I don’t want those.”

People magazine recently reported news that a number of prominent fashion designers have refused to work with Melania Trump because they do not approve of her, or more likely, her husband’s politics and language. Given Donald Trump’s often offensive way of speaking about, well, almost everything, that is understandable. Thus, they conclude, if you design and make clothes for Melania Trump, especially the outfit she will wear to the inauguration, you are, in some small way, endorsing Donald Trump and all he stands for.

Who creates federal laws? Civics books say it is Congress, but the real answer today may be the executive branch. Earlier this year, James Gattuso and Diane Katz reported that just the 229 major regulations issued since 2009 added over $100 billion in annual costs (according to the regulatory agencies), $22 billion coming in 2015.

Where Bernie Went Wrong: And Why His Remedies Will Just Make Crony Capitalism Worse. By Hunter Lewis.  Axios Press, 2016. 284 pages.

On the eve of new parliamentary elections, Romania seems to be locked into a permanent state of economic illiteracy, and many continue to support interventionism as a means to improving the standard of living in Romania. The public continues to show little affinity for a laissez-faire approach to markets.