It’s not breaking news, but the cost of producing pennies and nickels is still higher than their face value. This has been an issue for the past decade, with no progress being made. If the US Mint decides to change the composition of the penny and nickel, operators of vending machines and other coin-operated machines would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars retrofitting their machines, while the Mint would save a sum that’s only in the tens of millions of dollars.

This week, the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, following the lead of New York and a growing number of state governments, denounced daily fantasy sites as “illegal gambling.”

Our friend Wang Wenbin informs us that his Chinese translation of Ron Paul’s Pillars of Prosperity is now available.

It seems that each new bubble brings forth claims that, although the bubble may be the result of artificially created demand, prices of this or that product will not fall and may even continue to rise. How many so-called real estate and financial planning “experts” claimed that the surest path to financial security was in buying the largest house possible with the least amount of one’s own money?

We often  hear about homicide rates in Mexico and how they are among the highest in the world. While that is true for some parts of Mexico, much of Mexico — where nearly 80 percent of the population lives — has much lower rates than what are often quoted in the media. 

Most of the high-homicide areas in Mexico are found along the US border, and to a certain extent reflect the work of drug cartels working to keep drug trafficking channels open to the US.

Lego — the company that makes stackable toy bricks — has become a toy powerhouse in recent years, even surpassing Mattel in toy sales during 2014. Lego has become so popular, in fact, that the company has problems avoiding “brick shortages.”

A month ago, the world waited with bated breath in anticipation of the Fed’s increase in the fed funds rate of 25 basis points. This week Larry Summers, former U. S.

The “true money supply” measure is a measure of the money supply pioneered by Murray Rothbard and Joseph Salerno and is designed to provide a better measure than M2. The Mises Institute now offers monthly updates on the TMS metric and its growth. 

The global economy continues to wrestle with deflation, with oil reaching its lowest price in over a decade. The economic winds continue to look ominous, with even mainstream outlets questioning whether 2016 could be worse than 2008.