Janet Yellen celebrated her confirmation as Fed Chairman on January 6 by immediately issuing a carefully hedged prediction: “I am hopeful that the first digit [ of GDP growth] could be 3 rather than 2… and  [that] inflation will move back toward our longer-run goal of 2%.”

Let’s hope she has better luck with her predictions than the retiring Ben Bernanke, who almost always got his wrong.

New ebook in the Mises Bookstore God’s Gold: The Story of Rockefeller and His Times by John T. Flynn

Austrian economics has finally reached that point where people who aren’t Austrian at all claim to be Austrians. A case in point is the fact that Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater (aka Xe Services, aka Academi) counts among his main influences Austrian economics and libertarianism. In a recent column at Forbes, the author writes:

I’ve recently read Peter Schweizer’s book, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets.  The book offers a solid account of the way politicians use their political power to extract money from interest groups for the benefit of the Permanent Political Class.

Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb (New York: Random House, 2012).

With the Senate’s recent confirmation, Janet Yellen will soon become the most powerful woman in the world. When she takes over the reins of the Federal Reserve from Ben Bernanke on February 1st, she will become the 15th Fed Chairman and first woman to hold the position. And as I’ve said before, she’s the right woman for the job. At least by the standards set by the position.

Mitt Romney said during the 2012 presidential campaign: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it.”

Can there really be any doubt that it needs fixing?

Don’t expect the government to provide any reliable numbers. The biggest federal poverty program, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) pays 27 million taxpayers $60 billion in cash. But like Section 8 housing vouchers and Medicaid, EITC payments are excluded when the government totes up who is poor and who is not.

Steve Horwitz chimes in on the discussions on poverty and inequality here. He notes that the competitive market is what reduced poverty in the US. It is the War on Poverty that actually prevents the poor from making economic progress. Then he offers three great suggestions for helping the poor out of poverty, including ending the War on Drugs.