Indicators for financial market “stress” have reached their lowest levels in decades. For instance, stock market volatility has never been this low since the early 1990s. Credit spreads have been shrinking, and prices for credit default swaps have fallen to pre-crisis levels. In fact, investors are no longer haunted by concerns about the stability of the financial system, potential credit defaults, and unfavourable surprises in the economy or financial assets markets. How come?

Recently my wife and I spent a morning at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. The damage done by this big bully is incalculable. His library reminds us of the start of the blizzard of government expansion during Johnson’s presidential term, which lasted from the Kennedy assassination in November 1963 to his decision not to run for a full second term in 1968, which usually is attributed to his failure to end the war in Vietnam.

The Austrian Economics Research Conference is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian school, bringing together leading scholars doing research in this vibrant and influential intellectual tradition. The conference is hosted by the Mises Institute at its campus in Auburn, Alabama, and directed by Joseph Salerno, professor of economics at Pace University and academic vice president of the Mises Institute.

If there is anything that gets demagogic politicians and pundits riled up, it’s the closing of tax loopholes, and the tax-hike demagogues might just be getting one of their wishes come December.

Bloomberg reports that most online consumers will pay sales taxes in some shape or form in the next few months.

A county sheriff in Texas has run afoul of the social media mob when he publicly announced on Facebook that he was seeking to press charges against a local resident known for using the F-word on a sign on his vehicle. 

Recently, a relatively new economics called Behavioral Economics (BE) has started to gain popularity. Its practitioners such as Daniel Kahneman, Vernon Smith, and Richard Thaler were awarded Nobel prizes for their contribution in the field of BE.

The BE framework emerged on account of dissatisfaction with the neo-classical theory regarding consumer choices. A major problem with the neo-classical theory that people presented as if a scale of preferences is hard-wired in their heads. Regardless of anything else, this scale remains the same all the time.

In this new interview, Claudio Grass and I discuss economic bubbles, the European Central bank, and the state of the US dollar. 

From The Observer: 

During a three-and-a-half-hour speech to mark China’s five-year congress in Beijing, President Xi Jinping laid out his vision for the nation’s future. Xi spoke at length about economic concerns troubling Chinese leaders, including problems with medical care, education, employment, and a growing income gap.

Grove City College will host the fourteenth annual Austrian Student Scholars Conference, February 16-17, 2018. Open to undergraduates and graduate students in any academic discipline, the ASSC will bring together students from colleges and universities across the country and around the world to present their own research papers written in the tradition of the great Austrian School intellectuals such as Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and Hans Sennholz.

[The Following is adapted from a preface to a new report by Murray Sabrin, featured in his November 15 presentation, “Bubblenomics“ at Ramapo College.] 

If you Google “dot com bubble,” you will get nearly 1.2 million hits, and 3.3 million hits if you Google “tech bubble.” A Google search of “housing bubble” will return nearly 11 million hits. (The searches were conducted on March 29, 2017). And if you search Amazon books for financial crisis 2008 you will get more than 1200 hits.