There is growing concern across the globe that automation will lead us to a dystopian future. With robots becoming ubiquitous in every aspect of our lives, the marketplace will be filled with cheap goods, but the consuming population can’t acquire them because they don’t have a job. It is a legitimate worry for millions of people, especially when you see the countless videos and news articles about a robot flipping burgers, automated arms packaging goods inside a factory, and grocery stores without cashiers.

Recent actions and statements indicate that the Trump administration is serious about ramping up the federal government’s war on drugs.

In no area has President Trump differed more from his campaign rhetoric than the field of monetary policy. Yesterday Trump announced the nominations of Richard Clarida and Michelle Bowman to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, with the former to fill the role of Vice Chair.

Donald Trump and California Governor Jerry Brown have failed to come to an agreement over how California National Guard troops should be used at the US-Mexico border. Gov. Brown has agreed to send California troops, but has stated he will not allow them to function in a “immigration enforcement” role.

Let interest rates rise. Better yet, let interest rates function in the marketplace, wholly independent of central bank attempts at rate-setting or targeting.

How? Not through a laughably small and slow process of Fed tapering, but through a wholesale and aggressive selloff of assets still polluting the Fed’s balance sheet since it began aggressively those assets from commercial bank in 2008.   

Here is a simple example of the gains from trade. The exact some physical goods has different subjective values for their owners and both benefit from exchange!