[Jeff Deist recently gave a talk entitled Libertarian, Heal Thyself at a Mises Institute event in San Diego. The following is an excerpt from his remarks- Ed.]
I’m sure many people in this room remember the late Harry Browne, who was an investment advisor and a great libertarian. In fact he was the Libertarian Party’s nominee for president in 1996 and 2000.
Yellen, like notorious previous Fed chiefs including Strong, Martin, and Greenspan, can now claim success in having prolonged and strengthened an asset price inflation which otherwise may well have been about to enter its severe end phase. If history is any guide, the result of that success is to be feared.
It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute. Consider his speech last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). It was reported as “fiery” and “blistering,” but it was also full of contradictions.
February in Romania has brought 27 consecutive days of protests against the current government, at a scale unmatched since the Revolution in 1989. In a record day, more than 600,000 people gathered in the capital’s Victory Square and around the country to overturn a decision by the current ruling party to decriminalize some acts of corruption and abuse of office. This decision was especially self-serving given the high number of party members already serving suspended sentences for similar graft offenses.
As you may know, Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff, from the Workers Party, was impeached some months ago. Since her impeachment, Vice-president Michel Temer took power as president, and the Brazilian economic mess is turning to a slightly more market-guided scenario while the political mess is turning into a much deeper problem.
