In his essay on the pervasive evil of “neoliberalism” George Monbiot demonstrates confusion similar to that of Philip Mirowski in his book More Heat than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature’s Economics.
On 10 March 2016, European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi gave rise to expectations that the monetary authority could, at some stage, issue helicopter money. The latter basically denotes a free handout of new money to, say, consumers, corporates and public sector entities. Why would the ECB want to do such a thing?
It appears that the €500 note will die a slow death. Rather than being completely demonetized, production of the note will cease, but those holding notes will still be able to deposit them and exchange them. A complete ban seems to have been stymied due to strong opposition from Germany. German opposition to the note’s removal stems from a high rate of cash usage.
In a move that will be unsurprising to cynics everywhere, the US treasury has announced that Andrew Jackson, and not Alexander Hamilton, will be replaced by Harriet Tubman.
The idea of freedom has become so ingrained in all of us that for a long time no one dared to call it into question. People were accustomed always to speaking of freedom only with the greatest of reverence; it remained for Lenin to call it a “bourgeois prejudice.” Although the fact is often forgotten today, all this is an achievement of liberalism.
This article from the Free Beacon about Bernie Sanders being kicked out of a “hippie commune” in 1971 reads like something from The Onion. Bernie, age 30(!) at that point, was like a bad college roommate who preferred late night political discussions to housework and cleaning.
Under the title “Target increases minimum wage to $10 an hour,” Reuters reports that Target is increasing its “minimum wage:”
Last week James Grant, friend of the Mises Institute and prolific financial commentator and historian, wrote Time’s cover story detailing the fiscal shape of the United States.
Following some months of political indecision, it seems impossible to reverse the movement toward the impeachment of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. Despite expected criticism from her political support group, the impeachment process goes according to Brazilian law and Dilma’s position becomes ever more indefensible as new evidences of corruption surrounding her and her government arise. But as I wrote some months ago, it is not clear that removing the president can lead the country to really pro-market policies.
This week, President Obama and Vice President Biden held a hastily arranged secret meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen. According to the one paragraph statement released by the White House following the meeting, Yellen, Obama, and Biden simply “exchanged notes” about the economy and the progress of financial reform. Because the meeting was held behind closed doors, the American people have no way of knowing what else the three might have discussed.
