Demonizing the financial industry has proven to be a political winner. Exposure of the evil banks was followed by Michael Lewis’s exposé of the markets in Flash Boys.

Henry Hazlitt started to write his only novel, The Great Idea in 1949. It was finally published in 1951, but the British editors were not happy with the title. Among the alternatives Hazlitt submitted, one of them, Time Will Run Back, particularly struck their attention. It was published in England under that title in 1952. Today Time Will Run Back is still in circulation thanks to the efforts of the Mises Institute.

Nowadays, cannabis has been legalized nationwide for recreational use in only one country: Uruguay. Decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana has occurred in various jurisdictions of Europe and several states in the US. Four US states have legalized possession and sale for recreational use.  

It’s long been apparent that the Republican party has no interest in making any significant cuts to government spending. 

In fact, looking at GOP presidents since Nixon, it seems that Republicans like to increase government spending more than Democrats. 

The FBI released new crime statistics for 2015 yesterday, and they show homicides up ten percent from 2014 to 2015. During 2015, there were 4.9 homicides per 100,000 population. This was up from the 2014 revised rate of 4.4 per 100,000. 

Many commentators and economic experts are of the view that the Federal Reserve is running out of tools to keep the economy going given the very low level of interest rates. It is also argued that despite a steep downtrend in the policy rate since 1980, the underlying growth of the US economy has been following a down trend.

This must be contrasted with the previous period when the underlying trend in the federal funds rate was heading up while the underlying growth of economic activity followed a rising trend.