In order to gain insight into the future state of an economy, many economists refer to a variety of consumer and business surveys. Randomly selected consumers and businessmen are asked to provide their views about where the economy is heading. Thus, if a survey shows that the majority of the surveyed express optimism it is regarded as good news for the economy. Conversely, if the majority of the surveyed are pessimistic it is taken as a bad omen for future economic activity.

The federal government is running a massive deficit right now. American wages are stagnant. The US is involved in multiple costly wars with no apparent objective. And the president raises taxes on Americans at will through his tariff policy.

But fortunately the Congress is getting down to what is really important. Federalizing laws banning the sale of cat and dog meat.

Free-market advocates are clear about what should be done about government services and operations: they should be privatized.

While there is considerable confusion about how the process should be accomplished, the goal is crystal-clear. But apart from trying to speed up privatization, and also forcing that process indirectly by slashing the budgets of government agencies, what is supposed to be done in the meantime? Here, free-marketeers have scarcely begun to think about the problem, and much of that thinking is impossibly muddled.

As Hurricane Florence prepares to ravage the Southeastern United States, social media warriors, and “news” outlets are exclaiming their outrage at the business owners who are raising prices on essential items such as water, food, gasoline, plywood, and even hotel rooms. This “price gouging,” however, is absolutely essential, for people’s lives are at risk due to this storm.

Automation seems to be a never-ending source of fear-mongering. Judging from the commentary, robots will “replace us” and cause large-scale unemployment. With the entry of artificial intelligence (AI), and robots that make robots, the value of human beings as productive forces in the economy is simply zero. People then become value-less consumers, only “mouths to feed” while production is carried out by machines.

Arguably one of the rights that has seen less government encroachment in the US — in contrast to other activities such as commerce — gun rights are now witnessing unprecedented attacks at the state level and even from politically-connected corporate entities.

I’ve been following Lew Rockwell’s work pretty closely for more than 15 years, but there’s a lot of good stuff I haven’t heard before in this new interview between Tom Woods and Lew. He goes a little more deeply into some of his work with Ron Paul in Congress, and Lew apparently has a new book coming out soon, called Against the Left.

Former president Barack Obama is back. He kicked off a series of campaign appearances last week with a blistering attack on the Trump administration and said the Republican Party had “embraced a rising absolutism.” President Donald Trump deserves plenty of harsh criticism, but Obama’s indictment is akin to the kid who killed his parents and then sought mercy from the judge because he was an orphan.

Erik Prince, the owner of a series of mercenary firms originally known as Blackwater, wants to “privatize” the war in Afghanistan. And he wants you to pay him to do it.