As 2018 came to an end, politicians and media pundits insisted that “ gun violence “ was growing and hitting crisis levels .

The Federal Reserve has injected $278 billion into the securities repurchase market for the first time. Numerous justifications have been provided to explain why this has happened and, more importantly, why it lasted for various days. The first explanation was quite simplistic: an unexpected tax payment. This made no sense. If there is ample liquidity and investors are happy to take financing positions at negative rates all over the world, the abrupt rise in repo rates would simply vanish in a few hours.

Recently, something unusual happened: instead of the more normal reverse repurchase agreements, the Fed escalated its repurchase agreements (repos).

“In order to show that it is a half-truth, we must have recourse to long and dry dissertations.”
— Frédéric Bastiat

For the sake of argument, let’s follow the lead of behavioral economics and assume for the sake of discussion that people are not rational. Consistency requires we apply this description to all representatives of homo sapiens, including those who make government policy. As the public-choice school shows, officials and members of parliaments are not angels, but the same people as everyone else. If so, cognitive errors, so publicized by behavioral economists, should also apply to them.

Presumably bolstered by the fiery claims of Greta Thunberg and the general theme of Climate Week, people on Twitter have been declaring that capitalism threatens humanity.

According to some columnists, modern monetary theory (MMT) is the most powerful economic alternative to neoliberal orthodoxy. Is this really the case?

The key idea of ​​MMT is that the government that controls the issuance of its currency cannot go bankrupt because it can always issue money to pay off its creditors. If so, then the government should not shy away from increasing the necessary expenditures. The government of a sovereign state can afford any expense — due to the currency monopoly, it cannot run out of money.

The universal basic income (UBI) is gaining popularity as the alternative to the current welfare system. The idea is to give each citizen the same amount of money, no matter if he or she works or not. Therefore, unlike traditional welfare systems, the UBI has no means test, nor willingness-to-work test. Nobody would be then left without a livelihood even if there is no work for him. Doesn’t that sound great?

If we want a true alternative to fossil fuels that improves the environment, reduces emissions, and strengthens global welfare, it will only come from the free market. 

Historical evidence and economic incentives show us that interventionism and socialism never protects the environment; they only use it as a subterfuge to increase control of the economy while subsidizing polluters under the excuse of “employment” using the term “strategic sectors.”

Interventionism, in fact, puts all obstacles to technological innovation and disruptive developments: