On the wall outside my office, the gift of Nelson White, is a framed piece of money: a 500 billion dinar note issued by the government of Yugoslavia. It was printed in 1993, when it would buy about a gallon of milk. And that was before the inflation really got bad. By January 1994, the rate would reach 313 million percent and this note became literally worthless.
The international socialist movement, led by Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, is attempting to revive the disastrous policy of war socialism with which the current century began.
According to the hoopla, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was created in 1995 as an instrument of global free trade. Instead, it is proving to be a vehicle for corruption, economic reprisals, and politicization of trade.
The agency’s true character was revealed when the city of Seattle, host of the November 1999 WTO Summit, was caught selling corporate sponsorships in exchange for access to high-level trade officials. The WTO is starting to resemble an economic version of the International Olympic Committee.
When Janet Yellen, Clinton’s chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, resigned her post, she said it was for purely personal reasons. But according to inside reports, the personal reasons included frustration at having to lie day-in and day-out. No matter what the economic data of the week, she was expected to give it a spin that would boost the president and smear his enemies.
I reside in Indian River County, Florida, where jury duty is mandated by statute, as in most states. This means that the courts in the county are authorized to “summon” specific individuals for service in civil and criminal proceedings as jurors. A failure to respond to the jury duty summons will be considered a “contempt of court,” and a fine not to exceed $100 can be imposed.
No New York City public institution better illustrates the rise and decline of the city than the subways. The subways were primarily built by private-sector entrepreneurs at the turn of the century.
In 1997, a stupendously expensive film was made about the sinking of the Titanic, and the film was stupendously popular. Its success was hardly surprising. Eighty-seven years after the Titanic’s fatal encounter with an iceberg, her story remains intensely interesting--and deservedly so. It is one of the great stories of the world.
Keynesian economics continues to infect much public debate, despite being debunked for decades by Austrian economists, some mainstream economists, and reality itself.
Consider the standard public debate over the question: Is the economy growing too fast? The leading answers offered in the debate always are: (a) Yes, the Fed must tighten to prevent inflation; (b) No, the economy still has room to grow before there’s inflation; and (c) Yes, but reducing inflation is not worth the price of high unemployment.
