The sharing economy has completely reshaped the way we do business with each other as well as expanded opportunities for those looking to go into business for themselves. While the rest of the world is celebrating the accessibility and affordability that the sharing economy has brought to numerous sectors, there are those who see this emerging market as “highly disturbing.”

During our Boston Mises Circle last weekend we discussed the real state of the US economy, and the solutions that lie beyond politics. This week, America’s continued economic stagnation was further illustrated by another lack-luster jobs report — showing that the government can’t even rig its own statistics enough to project a strong economy.

[Reprinted from The Austrian (September – October 2016).]

Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy
Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong
Harvard Business Press Review, 2016
xi + 223 pages

About once each month, Krista Kafer and Steve Kelley have me on their show on 710 KNUS at 6 pm to discuss an economics-related topic. Last week we discussed government spending and debt, and why neither Trump nor Clinton will be cutting any government programs. 

Articles referenced in the interview include: 

One of the most widely accepted propositions among political economists is the following: Every monopoly is bad from the viewpoint of consumers. Monopoly is understood in its classical sense to be an exclusive privilege granted to a single producer of a commodity or service, i.e., as the absence of free entry into a particular line of production. In other words, only one agency, A, may produce a given good, x.

How to Get a Higher Return for Savers and Find a Path Toward Higher Investment

The rise in the personal saving rate following the Great Recession was an unexpected development in light of the Federal Reserve’s effort to foster stronger consumer spending via ultra-accommodative monetary policies.

In an American society increasingly polarized over politics, one uniting belief is that there is something very wrong with our government. While this is true, there is an unfortunate tendency — on both sides — to try to identify simple, easy to recite reforms to fix our woes.

On September 16, 2016, the US Justice Department threatened Deutsche Bank with a $14 billion fine for bond sales practices from before the 2007 Financial Crisis. Predictably, the share price immediately collapsed 8% and the financial markets went into a tizzy over equity holders losing value. This also rippled into other parts of the banking sector, for example hitting share prices of the Royal Bank of Scotland by 4%.