Last week the Fed released the results of its regular ”stress tests” given the large banks. It outright failed the US branch of Deutsche Bank which, as Thorsten Polleit recently noted, has problems so severe they could risk the whole Eurozone.

You get a lot of attention if you shout out things like “The stock market is about to collapse”, or “The US dollar crash is just around the corner”, or “The housing market slump is about to unfold”. But from the viewpoint of sound economics, making these kinds of predictions is quite impossible. Putting probabilities to certain outcomes – such as “I assign a probability of 30 per cent that the stock market collapses in 2018” – might be fashionable among forecasters, but it certainly does not do the trick or make things any better.

Americans’ faith in democracy and politicians has plummeted in large part due to perennial violations of their rights by one federal alphabet agency after another, from the FBI, to the TSA, to the DEA, to the DHS, and to the IRS. Candidate Donald Trump periodically signaled that he would curb federal abuses but, as president, he has instead spurred new crackdowns on drug users, property owners, immigrants, trade, and other targets. 

When suicide rates are in the news, some observers who are already in favor of gun control will attempt to blame suicides on the mere presence of guns . The claim is that guns are easy to use for suicide, so this leads to more successful attempts.

Theodore Roosevelt (president 1901–09) and Woodrow Wilson (president 1913–21) are the two celebrated progressive presidents. Many of today’s observers, not familiar with the detailed history of that era, fail to appreciate the fundamental importance of the tariff issue to debates of that time.

Americans are being told that China’s currency manipulations are causing harm to its trading partners, America being the main victim. Nothing could be further from the truth. China’s currency manipulations certainly cause harm, but to China itself!

No country can cause harm to another by adopting any economic intervention. All economic interventions cause harm only to the country that adopts them. This applies to subsidies of home industries, quotas restricting import volumes, tariffs imposed on imports, and currency manipulations.

Most experts are of the view that as the economy gains strength the Fed must step in at some stage and introduce a tighter stance in order to prevent the rate of inflation getting out of control.

Why however, should economic growth be positively associated with a general increase in the prices of goods and services?

History is an easy subject to teach if you are intellectually lazy. It is the most challenging subject to teach if you have a great memory, read a lot, and care about understanding causes and effects.

You keep having to rewrite your narrative to fill the same number of lessons every year. Time marches on.

If you pad your lectures, no big problem. If you write tight lectures, you must remove material you thought was crucial.

Your school district will supply you with a new edition every few years. Teach the text -- the boring, establishment text.

The Tariff Act of 1828 quickly became known as the “Tariff of Abominations.” That tariff now has a contender for the name.

The Trump tariff program seems to be metastasizing by the day. What are Mr. Trump’s objectives? Consider a different question first. Would Trump be on this course if he thought that it would cost campaign contributions or votes in November? Silly question. As I see it, Trump tariff policy is the most brazen reach for votes and political cash since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, and may go down in history as just as big a mistake.