Austrians oppose the whole notion of trying to accurately measure “inflation” which mainstream economists see as a general rise in prices. (Austrians view inflation as a politically engineered increase in the money supply.)
The prime minister of Iceland recently commissioned a report by Frosti Sigurjonsson to recommend a better money and banking system for Iceland. The recently released report recaps Iceland’s sorry history of money and banking disasters and lays the majority of the blame for the 2008 collapse on the institution of fractional reserve banking, which caused an out-of-control increase in the money supply.
In recent years, Paul Krugman has incessantly defended France and its welfare state, even going so far as to pretend that the French economy was in fact in better shape than the British economy. According to him, “To an important extent, what ails France in 2014 is hypochondria, belief that it has illnesses it doesn’t.” However, except for some Keynesian propagandists, nobody believes that the French economy is not deeply in crisis and it is now more and more obvious that Krugman is wrong.
In recent years, claims that “the rich” don’t pay their “fair share” of taxes have been repeated countless times. But that excuse to tax them more to line others’ pockets is blown away whenever the highly disproportionate income tax burdens borne by higher earners are reported.
The article is adapted from Adam Vass Gal’s new book Generational Poverty: An Economic Look at the Culture of the Poor (2015) from Vernon Press.
When examining cyclical poverty, it is important to study the typical tendencies of people that have generational success. Some like to equate financial success to a level of work ethic, and assume the harder you work, the more you will make. This book’s study takes a different approach.
Even as the Saudi Arabian state steps up bombing raids in Yemen and spends billions on new military infrastructure, plans are moving forward for the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah. The new tower is to be a kilometer tall and will contain at least 200 floors. It will include both a luxury hotel, class A office space, residences, and many other luxury features. It represents phase 1 of a multiphase development just north of the city of Jeddah on the Red Sea.
A little late to the party, the BBC wonders at the surreal and ongoing failure of the Venezuelan regime to provide its citizens with life’s basic amenities. Goods such as flour, sugar, cooking oil, shampoo and detergent, and the oft-mentioned toilet paper are now in such short supply that people are given time off work to queue in front of the stores. But in good socialist fashion, matters seem otherwise pretty “well organized”.
