NBC reports: “companies are seeing wealthier Americans spend more while lower-income Americans are paring back.”

Alex Pollock’s latest letter to the editor at the WSJ appeared on Saturday, November 1:

Since 1971, in the Nixonian monetary era, the American government has enjoyed a power derived from the pure fiat paper money that its central bank can print in unlimited quantities to finance the government’s deficits. Simply put, politicians naturally like to keep passing out money to stay in office. It’s convenient, politicians reckon, to have a compliant central bank to buy government bonds with printed money — especially if the Congress is spending more than taxes bring in.

Some commentators are of the view that an important driver in consumer price inflation is the business drive for higher profits. According to the Ground Work Collaborative think tank report,

In a recent comment, Professor Hülsmann responds to my article in which I explain Ludwig von Mises’s classification of money into commodity money, credit money, and fiat money, and apply this framework to the historical case of Argentina in December 2023, when Javier Milei took office.

It is an axiom of asset bubbles that—under the bustling surface—widespread malfeasance takes place. This is especially true near the end of asset bubbles, where participants fear missing out on the supposed riches produced therein, but—failing to achieve them—ultimately resort to chicanery and fraud to achieve their ends.

[The following is the Acceptance Address by the Professor Jesús Huerta de Soto, at the ceremony conferring the Order of May for Merit. White Room, Casa Rosada, Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 27, 2025.]