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.

Ed: The following is an excerpt from a talk given by Mises Institute president Jeff Deist at the 2016 Texas Libertarian Party convention. This portion of the talk deals with the political reality faced by libertarians and the Libertarian Party. The full talk can be viewed here.

During the period 1980s and 1990s, the desirability of the “independence from politics” of central banks became almost an article of faith among mainstream macroeconomists and those operating in financial markets. This development was driven by two factors: academic research on central banking; and the personality cults that grew up around the two Fed Chairmen during this period, Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan.

There is the ancient bugbear of “hoarding.” The image is conjured up of the selfish old miser who, perhaps irrationally, perhaps from evil motives, hoards up gold unused in his cellar or treasure trove—thereby stopping the flow of circulation and trade, causing depressions and other problems. Is hoarding really a menace?

The Foundation for Economic Education The Freeman 1991

Those who have been following the presidential campaign in the United States are undoubtedly familiar with the proposal by Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders to allow the United States Postal Service to offer banking services at its post office branches. What many are not familiar with is that this idea was already tried in the past and failed miserably, ending in 1967.

Following the unconventional monetary policy of negative interest rates, central banks are now considering an even more desperate measure: “helicopter money.” Milton Friedman is credited with this idea:

I enjoyed listening to Theral Timpson’s podcast interview of Jason Hoyt yesterday.

Labor activists have continued to press for a nationwide minimum wage of 15 dollars, and in a surprisingly economically-literate article at ABC news, commentators recognized that the higher a minimum wage is pushed, the more it will increase unemployment: