Historically most recessions in the US are preceded by significant declines in the differential or interest rate spread between the 10-year T-bond and the 3-month Treasury security. Typically, this narrowing in the spread occurs many months before the onset of the recession.
Conversely, the widening in the spread occurs many months before the beginning of the economic recovery.
What is the reason for these changes in the interest rate spread?
We’ve recently made it easier for readers to browse the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.
You can now browse all issues in chronological order here, and you can download full issues or individual articles as PDFs.
Right now, all articles are linked going back nine years, and we’ll continue to add more links. In either case, all articles are listed going back to 1998.
There was high drama last week when Rep. Devin Nunes announced at the White House that he had seen evidence that the communications of the Donald Trump campaign people, and perhaps even Trump himself, had been “incidentally collected” by the US government.
If true, this means that someone authorized the monitoring of Trump campaign communications using Section 702 of the FISA Act. Could it have been then-President Obama? We don’t know. Could it have been other political enemies looking for something to harm the Trump campaign or presidency? It is possible.
by Frank A. Fetter
Introduction by Murray N. Rothbard
Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Kansas City, 1977, 400 pp.
Reviewed by Israel M. Kirzner
Reprinted from Austrian Economics Newsletter 2, no. 3 (1980)
The New York Fed’s most recent household debt report showed ballooning debt and delinquency in student and auto loans. Total household debt has just about reached its previous late-2008 high of over $12.5 trillion.
Our guest on Mises Weekends is Professor Per Bylund, a man who studies entrepreneurship for a living. Why is the role of the entrepreneur — the individual who risks capital, time, and energy to build a business — almost completely disregarded by most economists? Does the Austrian focus on individual human action explain why business schools are far more willing to embrace Austrian principles?
As the Fed continues to increase the rate of interest it pays on excess reserves, the Fed’s profits that are left over are slowly going to shrink in size. Since the Fed sends its profits to the US Treasury each year, the US Treasury will be receiving less. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday:
The Dunning-Kruger effect is the idea that low-ability people tend to suffer from illusory superiority. The phenomenon, first studied by David Dunning and Justin Kruger, says that people who know the least tend to overvalue their own competence, and tend to believe that they are experiencing some sort of upper-echelon level of thinking.
Back in 2013, Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington, refused to provide flowers for a gay friend’s same-sex wedding. The legal battle that ensued has now ended: The Washington State Supreme Court just unanimously ruled that the florist violated the state’s anti-discrimination law.
The case has given rise to some misconceptions about discrimination.
Here is the back story.
