According to mainstream thinking, economic slumps are caused by various shocks. This means that these slumps are caused by unexpected events, which by implication are not known beforehand.

Obviously if reasons behind various shocks cannot be established beforehand it makes sense to look at various symptoms of the emerging economic slump. Based on these symptoms the economic doctors could decide on the medicine required either to fix the economy or to prevent it from collapsing into an economic slump.

Hurricane Florence has left a huge swath of devastated communities in its wake. Some estimates predict more than 750,000 homes in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia will sustain flood and wind damage, with reconstruction costs of up to $170 billion possible.

For most, dealing with their insurance company to reimburse part of their damage repair costs will be a vital part of the process.

From endorsing Brazil’s military regime to fashioning himself as the Brazilian Donald Trump, Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro has a flair for generating controversy.

In 1962, businessman Sam Walton had an entrepreneurial objective in mind: Offer shoppers the lowest prices possible. From forcing US suppliers to slash costs to finding cheap imports abroad, Walmart became an iconic global brand, generating $500 billion in annual revenues because of its ability to enhance the consumer’s purchasing power, enabling the rise of the middle class.

“The first transport of Ice, from the shores of the United States to the banks of the Ganges is an event of no mean importance; and the names of those who planned and have successfully carried through their adventure at their own cost, deserve to be handed down to posterity with the name of other benefactors of mankind.”1

The Federal Reserve today raised the the Federal Funds Rate to a target/range of 2.0-2.25 percent:

Money supply growth rose in August, rising to the highest rate recorded since March of this year. Overall, money-supply growth remains well below the growth rates experienced from 2009 to 2016, and has fluctuated very little since March.

In August, year-over-year growth in the money supply was at 4.8 percent. That was up from July’s growth rate of 4.1 percent, and was also up from August 2017’s rate of 4.2 percent.

September 29 marks the birth of Ludwig von Mises, who Guido Hulsmann’s biography, Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism, argued was the 20th century’s foremost economist.

Is there any hope in the Western World that individual citizens can win some release from the relentless and imprisoning growth of government? In the US, government spending, a reasonable proxy for their power over us, increases every year, except for a few minor blips. The citizens’ situation becomes more and more dire.