Many assume that budget deficits reduce national savings, while a budget surplus contributes to national savings. National savings are defined as the sum of private savings (the after-tax income that households save) and public savings. By generating budget surpluses—not spending all that it receives in taxes—it would appear that the government generates wealth, thereby strengthening the economy’s fundamentals. This argument would be correct if government activities were of a wealth-generating nature. This is, however, not the case.

“Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class.” —Albert Jay Nock,

Michael Maharrey writes that gold and silver were in use historically much earlier than what was originally believed.

If in January 2018 you found yourself on the islands of Hawaii for a relaxing holiday, your winter break might have taken a turn not unlike the wildest apocalyptic Hollywood movie depictions.

In his introduction to F.W. Taussig’s Tariff History of the United States, David Chalmers observes that debates about protective tariffs are often politically fraught. This is not surprising, given the overtly political goal of protective tariffs. Chalmers describes protectionist tariffs as designed,

If we are to take the official unemployment rate as the final word on the employment situation—as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell instructed us to at last month’s FOMC press conference— then we’re likely to conclude that the job market is still red hot.