Supporting free trade is simply a matter of taking no action when another person exchanges in non-violent exchange with another person. That person may be right down the street, or that person may be in another country somewhere. No “free trade agreements” or other paperwork of any kind is required.
The Japanese response to negative interest rates was to buy personal safes. The German response is to pull money out of bank accounts and stick it in safe deposit boxes. Both are perfectly understandable reactions to the prospect of having to pay interest to a bank for holding deposits.
Perhaps no term is more banal, yet more terrifying, than “public policy.” It conjures up images of DC think tanks and bureaucrats, a land where intellectualism serves as cover for a stultifying grind of new regulations. It also puts the American public to sleep, as evidenced by a decided lack of “policy” discussion in the 2016 presidential campaign.
To seek to organize society is just as crazy as it would be to tear a living plant to bits in order to make a new one out of the dead parts.
In this recent CNBC interview, Marc Faber predicts the Fed will lower interest rates yet again this summer, and may even resort to negative interest rates in time. Faber recalls that Yellen had suggested negative rates as a possibility in 2009.
Sometimes, I get letters from readers that are full of great observations. Here’s one of them (in response to today’s article):
Dear Ryan,
For years, the US government has been able to finance its debt at cheap interest rates because there have always been plenty of enthusiastic buyers. As long as the Chinese, the Japanese, and others continue to hold and buy large amounts of US debt, then the US government doesn’t have to raise the amount it pays to the lender. This is also known as the interest rate, of course. As long as there are plenty of buyers, the interest rate remains low, and payments on the debt remain low.
In “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth,” Ludwig von Mises challenged the socialists to explain how economic calculation could be performed in a socialist economy absent prices. Mises concluded that economic calculation in a socialist economy is impossible, therefore socialism is impossible.
Listening to even a small portion of Simple Janet’s incoherent babble makes very clear that the nation’s central bank is well and truly impaled on its own petard. According to the dictionary, the latter term refers to ...
... a small bomb used for blowing up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. It is of French origin and dates back to the 16th century. A typical petard was a conical or rectangular metal device containing 2–3 kg (5 or 6 pounds) of gunpowder, with a slow match for a fuse.
Joseph Salerno reviews James Grant’s new book The Forgotten Depression — 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself in the spring 2016 issue of The Independent Review. Salerno points out how, at the time, there was widespread support among economists and politicians for curing the depression by laissez-faire “liquidationist” policy.
Election season is that magical time when politicians compete to see who can make the most outrageous promises to the voting public. Whether it’s healthcare, college tuition, or border walls, every candidate has a plan for turning the nation into utopia. The trouble is, utopias are expensive, and getting votes means convincing voters they can get paradise without paying for it.
