The Baltic Dry Index is the index price for several types of container ships. The index price is very sensitive to global economic activity and the level of international trade. An increase in international trade increases the index price and a decrease in international trade decreases the index price. At the height of the housing bubble the index traded over 11,000 and most recently sank to historic lows near 608. The index is down 45% over the last year and 22% since the beginning of the year.

Ordinary people, and sometimes experts as well, tend to overreact to short-term economic changes. The current economic malaise in the United States and Europe has brought forth a bevy of commentators convinced that this time the economy has taken a permanent turn for the worse. Never again, they declare, will we enjoy growing prosperity as we did in days of yore.

Recorded at “Breaking Away: The Case for Secession”—the Mises Circle in Houston, Texas, on 24 January 2015.

“And yet what is secession? When we talk about secession, we are saying that this political line should be drawn here instead of here. Wow. What a terrifying proposition that we might want to propose such a thing as that.”

A new survey by American Express reveals that 29 percent of Americans keep at least some of their “savings” in cash.  Overall 53 percent of cash holders stash their cash in a domestic hiding place.  Surprisingly, 67 percent of dollar bill and coin hoarders among the millennial generation secrete cash around their domicile.

Pierre Lemieux wrote an indispensible book (Somebody in Charge: A Solution to Recession) for anyone who wishes to understand the before, during, and immediate aftermath of the “Great Recession.”

The book’s importance is greater than just his analysis of the crisis. He thoroughly exposes the underlying weaknesses and fallacies of the whole Keynesian policy-activism agenda driven by the “animal spirits,” the irresistible urge to action of those who wrongly deem themselves in charge.

Volume 17, No. 4 (Winter 2014)

KEYWORDS: monetary policy, Mariana, Jefferson, Cervantes, Don Quixote, Austrian School, School of Salamanca, Philip II, Philip III, libertarianism, liberty, slavery, regicide, billon coins, Constitutionalism, Aragon, Euclid, Ron Paul, Paul Krugman

JEL CLASSIFICATION: B1, B2, B3, N1, N4

What will I say about our own maravedí, which was first of gold, then silver, and now is entirely of copper?

People tend to think about big government in terms of taxes and government spending. Big governments are the ones that have high taxes and big expenditure programs. Government regulations are a major component of big government, and the regulatory state often leads to more oppressive and more corrupt government than big spending. Consider, for example, the Scandinavian countries that have a reputation for big government–that is, big spending–but that are less oppressive and less corrupt than governments that spend less, but regulate more.

The European Central Bank (ECB) finally pulled the QE trigger by committing to purchase 60 billion euros of government debt and other assets every month until September of 2016 or until inflation gets closer to 2 percent.

Volume 17, No. 4 (Winter 2014)

Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames

New York: McGraw Hill, 2014, xvii + 249 pages