As we noted earlier this week, modern pundits are claiming modern American capitalism was built on a foundation of antebellum slavery. The contention is obviously false for no other reason than the fact the industrial economy didn’t skip a beat when slavery was abolished. Moreover, even in its day, the slave economy of the south was never as impressive as its supporters supposed it was. Cotton production was important. But northern farmers, miners, and factory workers would have been fine without it.

The money supply growth rate rose in July, climbing to a six-month high, but remaining well below the growth rates typically seen during 2017 and 2018.

In July, year-over-year growth in the money supply was at 2.19 percent. That was up slightly from June’s rate of 1.98 percent, but was well down from July 2018’s rate of 4.07 percent.

From the shoes you wear to the ice cream you eat, politics has found a way to sneak into some of the most mundane aspects of our lives. The new trend of “Woke Capital,” where firms are actively promoting social justice causes, has had many free-marketers scratching their heads at how corporate America has hopped on board this wave of Progressivism.

Last week, the Business Roundtable launched a major attack on property rights, the bedrock of capitalism.

Most people who have undertaken a formal study of economics end up accepting such things as the necessity of a central bank to prevent or at least ameliorate recessions. They take as a given the need for government intervention in the economy, or if not as a given, as explained by countless historical incidents of injustice. Perhaps most of all, they regard anyone calling for an unregulated gold coin standard as so hopelessly backward and naïve that refutation seldom goes further than rolling one’s eyes.

[From Understanding the Dollar Crisis (1973)]

In response to a weakening in the yearly growth rate of key economic indicators such as industrial production and real gross domestic product (GDP) some commentators have raised the alarm of the possibility of a recession emerging.

Some other commentators are dismissive of this arguing that the likelihood of a recession ahead is not very high given that other important indicators such as consumer outlays as depicted by the annual growth rate of retail sales and the state of employment appear to be in good shape (see charts).

Jerome Powell has only been Fed chairman since last February, but he has already been initiated into the worst part of the job. Whatever the Fed does, some complain that it didn’t act sooner and/or do enough, while others complain that it acted too soon and/or did too much. The sniping also extends to every word he did or didn’t say and when he did or didn’t say it. And even the president who appointed him frequently treats him like his 2020 scapegoat-in-waiting.