Jeff Peshut answers the question that has been widely discussed in the media lately: Is There Really A Corporate Debt Bubble That’s Ready To Burst? 

The European Central Bank (ECB) is rumored to be planning a halt  to its four-year quantitative easing program at the end of this week when it will stop its asset purchases while continuing to keep interest rates at current near-zero levels through 2019. The Economist laments this ‘rash’ decision, arguing that the European economy is still ‘faltering’, showing only very feeble and unstable signs of growth.

Listen to Ryan McMaken’s commentary on the Radio Rothbard podcast.

Bloomberg reports this week that on Wall Street, men have started to implement office strategies that some managers and employees believe will minimize the likeliness of being accused of sexual harassment:

Austrian economists should take an interest in the so-called “replication crisis” in science, which is affecting primarily the field of psychology, but is likely under-recognized in other social sciences—and in economics in particular.

Once again Donald Trump’s presidency has done a great job of highlighting the hypocrisy and delusion of the beltway bubble.

A recent story from the Daily Beast reports that Trump is frustrating advisers with his apathy towards the current trillion dollar deficits coming out of Washington. 

In his speech to the Economic Club of New York on November 28 2018, the Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell said that the US central bank’s policy interest rate is just below the neutral rate. This prompted many commentators to suggest that a tighter interest rate stance of the Fed is likely coming to an end. At the end of October the fed funds rate target stood at 2.25%.

Listen to Ryan McMaken’s commentary on the Radio Rothbard podcast.

In order to whip up opposition to Brexit, pro-EU activists have long relied on generating fear by suggesting that without EU membership, British trade will suffer, and export totals will collapse.

Count Venezuela among the victims of hyperinflation.

Economist Steve Hanke has done a meticulous job over the years raising awareness on troubled world currencies, with Venezuela’s Bolivar receiving the bulk of his focus. Hanke’s recent findings place inflation rates at 60,324 percent — rendering the Bolivar practically worthless.

Big Tech has long faced calls for more regulation, and as their companies have grown, so has the pressure. Now those demands are coming from within Silicon Valley itself. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently told Axios that, though he supports the free market, it’s only a matter of time before Big Tech is restricted. “We have to admit when the free market is not working. And it hasn’t worked here,” Cook said.