Discussing poverty as an advocate of free markets is tricky business in today’s world. If one takes poverty seriously and points out the very real plight of the impoverished, it is often assumed that one must therefore be advocating for government “solutions” to the problem. The knee-jerk reaction of many defenders of free markets is to simply deny that poverty exists much at all, or that if the poor just try a little harder, or aren’t so lazy, they won’t be poor anymore.

The European Central Bank’s (ECB) decision to shortly print over 1 trillion euros has reignited concerns over currency wars. The euro has dropped almost 20 percent over the last six months after endless hints from the ECB.

Burt Blumert, who died six years ago, would have turned eighty-six today. It’s still hard for me to believe that Burt isn’t here anymore. Burt was the person you could always go to if you faced a difficult situation. His insights and good humor made you understand exactly what you needed to do. To get some idea of what Burt was like, I recommend his collection Bagels, Barry Bonds, and Rotten Politicians.

Matt Battaglioli writes:

If a potential borrower who is determined to be a rather high risk asks for a private loan, then their interest on that loan will be quite high, but at least in that situation, the borrower has the choice of taking the loan, or to not take the loan. In the end, the borrower will choose what he or she believes will most benefit him or her. Yes, the borrower might miscalculate and the loan might turn out to have been a bad idea, but at least the borrower had a choice.

Savings has nothing to do with money. For instance, if a baker produces ten loaves of bread and consumes one loaf, his savings is nine loaves of bread. In other words, the “savings” in this case is the baker’s real income (his production of bread) minus the amount of bread that the baker consumed. The baker’s savings now permits him to secure other goods and services.

At minute 15 of this discussion, Michael Oliver discusses Marcia Christoff-Kurapova’s Mises Daily article on Russia’s gold-buying spree. What are the Russian and Chinese states up to? Listen here.

The banking system in the United States today functions largely as a spy agency for the federal government. It is designed to assist federal agents with observing your every financial move, and it is assumed that every bank customer is a criminal. Such laws can be loosely described as falling under the “know your customer” schemes in which the feds have made it the job of financial institutions to assist the feds in surveillance of the public’s financial lives. 

Robert Wenzel writes: 

Robert Higgs recently published “Two Ideological Ships Passing in the Night” in the Jan 2015 issue of Econ Journal Watch.

For as long as political and ideological movements have sought to engage large followings, they have embraced slogans and catch phrases that give pithy expression to their views, aversions, and objectives. Slogans are dangerous in that they substitute rote declarations for serious thought, yet they may sometimes serve a purpose even for thoughtful people as rhetorical hammers with which one hits potential listeners in the head to get their attention. In any event, it seems that slogans and politicking are inseparable under both democratic and revolutionary conditions.