There is no American politician more closely associated with “progressive” economic causes than Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. The senator is widely regarded by the political Left as an expert on financial issues, is a self-professed champion of the “working poor,” and is a proud, finger-wagging chastiser of the 1 percent and Wall Street. Her cause is to lift up the least powerful and protect them from the most powerful. She appears to genuinely believe in this cause, and has made several policy proposals that she believes will serve it.

More than thirty years ago—in 1928, to be precise— H. G. Wells published a minor propagandistic novel called “The Open Conspiracy.” Though I reviewed it at the time, I’ve forgotten now exactly what that open conspiracy was. But the description seems to fit with peculiar aptness something that is happening in the United States today.

Today the Bank of England announced that it would follow the lead of the Federal Reserve and maintain interest rates at .5%. The bank didn’t stop there however, warning voters that next week’s Brexit referendum posed “the largest immediate risk facing UK financial markets, and possibly also global financial markets.

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 19, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 124–128

What is the relationship between opportunity cost, choice and action? In my review of Eduard Braun’s Finance behind the Veil of Money (2014), I took exception with his view that opportunity costs are not only unnecessary, but even detrimental to understanding decision making.

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 19, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 121–123

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 19, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 116–120

There is no doubt that there is a boom going on out there. Unfortunately, it’s just a boom in asset prices, and not in job growth. That means real incomes are going down for people who don’t make a sizable amount of income off assets they own. 

In other words, for most people, the cost of living is going up while the job situation is stagnating. 

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 19, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 112–115

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided yesterday to leave the target federal funds rate at between 0.25 and 0.50 percent. This was widely expected, given the dismal jobs report that was published two weeks ago and the uncertainty in the banking sector surrounding the UK’s upcoming Brexit vote.