One of the most persistent — and fallacious — argument against the libertarian or laissez-faire position is that libertarianism is an “atomistic” and “selfish” philosophy that denies the obvious truth that human beings are a “social species” who long for a strong sense of community.
The yearly growth rate of real gross domestic product eased to 1.9 percent during the fourth quarter of 2015, compared to 2 percent during the previous quarter.
It appears that the yearly growth rate of GDP could fall to 1.7 percent by Q3 before bouncing to 2.4 percent by Q4.
Asking wealthy elites to provide opinions about central banking generally results in reticence on their part. After all, many billionaires became rich or stay rich only because the global economy has been “financialized” — which is to say the particular assets they hold (generally controlling equity stakes in companies) have artificially high values because of monetary policy.
[An excerpt from Human Action]
Bernie Sanders is no Ron Paul, but he has had great success in galvanizing masses of Americans – particularly young voters – by communicating a populist message of anger against Wall Street. Last night’s surprise victory in Michigan is the latest example of Sanders’s ability to tap into the distrust many Americans have of the current system.
Super Tuesday may have been the beginning of the end for the Bernie Sanders campaign, but the ideas that propelled it are likely to linger for quite some time. With some writers comparing Bernie to Ron Paul (not in terms of economics and philosophy, of course, but as insurgent candidates), now seemed like an opportune moment to examine the Sanders message and legacy, and compare it to Ron’s.
In a remarkable TV interview, Otmar Issing, the former Chief Economist of the European Central Bank and a former member of its Board, dismisses negative interest rates as a solution to what ails Europe. According to Issing,
Forty-five million Americans were on food stamps — also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — at some point in 2015. That’s equal to one in seven Americans. It’s a big number, although not an all-time high. The all-time high was reached back in 2013 when more than 47 million Americans enrolled in the program. The total budget in 2015 was $73.9 billion, or approximately 12 percent the size of all defense and veterans programs.
The political circus of the 2016 presidential election has revived and reinvigorated popular belief in age-old protectionist fallacies. Currently both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, are both in favor of expanding protectionist trade policy, with both of them arguing that free trade “destroys” jobs and hurts domestic workers and producers by exposing them to foreign competition. Both candidates espouse an utterly misguided zero-sum view of economics, in which one side to an exchange wins only when the other side loses. Both men are, of course, completely wrong.
... according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) — the so-called central banks’ central bank. The BIS has just released a research report questioning whether negative interest rates are effective in achieving policymakers’ goals of staving off a (phantom) deflation without adversely impacting the financial sector and the overall economy.
