China’s debt growth rate has become the focus of some discussions and, fair enough, from comparing the outright levels, it may seem that China can collapse at any moment. Daniel Fernandez suggested this in his article “Has China Reached Its Debt Limit?“ in Mises Wire. In response to the government’s monetary expansion stimulus plan after the 2008 financial crisis, China’s corporate sector did indeed leverage up quickly, followed by an equally fast pace of leveraging in the household sector.

A recent op-ed piece in The New York Times urged the Republican Party not to “throw away free enterprise” and embrace populism. Arthur C. Brooks, the author of the article, makes two bold but erroneous claims.

Listen to Ryan McMaken’s commentary on the Radio Rothbard podcast.

In June of 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) put forward a proposal to regulate the short-term loan industry. The Small Dollar Lending Rule seeks to “alleviate and solve” for the “apparent weaknesses” of the current rates and short-term lenders by requiring “lenders to assess and verify a borrower’s income, housing costs, and credit and legal obligations.”

A new international trade agreement has hit a stumbling block. Against the background of a decades long deadlock of the WTO negotiations, and the controversies surrounding the more recent Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Walloon region in Belgium has decided to ‘veto’ the CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) between EU and Canada. As any decisions regarding the European Common Market require a unanimous vote of regional representatives, this veto appears insurmountable.

In 1868, a young Henry George wrote an editorial on the nearly completed Pacific Railroad that was soon to connect his state of California with the rest of the country. This editorial, “What the Railroad Will Bring Us,” acknowledged the progress that railroads would signify in the industrializing economy of the Gilded Age, but George saw this as a boon only for the privileged few.

Bob Tollison died unexpectedly today at the age of 74. While many readers of mises.org may not be familiar with him, he was one of the most inventive, prolific, and impactful scholars of our generation. As the current leader of the public choice school his wide-ranging contributions certainly qualify him as a Potential Nobel prize winning economist. He was an internationally recognized authority on topics such as rent seeking political behavior and anti-trust economics.

Late last week, Governor Cuomo signed legislation which made his position on the sharing economy painfully clear to New York City residents. Capitulating to the whims of the traditional hotel industry, Cuomo made history by adopting the nation’s strictest home sharing regulations, essentially banning the homesharing industry from operating within city limits.

The New York City hotel industry has experienced record declines over the last few years, which directly correlates to the rise in popularity of sites like Airbnb.

When US dairy farmers worked together to reduce herd numbers — in order to limit supply and boost prices — this was apparently seen as a dangerous and deceptive move. Recently, dairy cooperatives (producers who work together and serve as middlemen between the farms and processors of dairy products) settled a class-action lawsuit for $52 million for working to reduce dairy cattle numbers, which would limit the supply of milk products.