The Underconsumption Bogey
[This article is excerpted from chapter 15 of Human Action.]
Bad News for Our Money
Suppressing market interest rates to the lowest level possible seems to have become a key objective for central banks around the world as they respond to the turmoil in financial markets, the decline in output and the deterioration in the labor market.However, it is a fatal policy: it amounts to fighting the correction of the debacle which has been caused by central banks’ downward manipulation of interest rates through a relentless increase in bank circulation credit and the money supply.
No sign of a housing recovery
The new Case-Shiller housing price data was recently released, and cities like Los Angeles are still reporting housing price declines of 22 percent. Miami is down almost 29 percent.
S & P’s spokesman declared that “we see no evidence that a recovery in home prices has begun.”
Why the Meltdown Should Have Surprised No One
Peter Schiff is famed for being the most vocal financial economist to have perfectly predicted the crash. At the Austrian Scholars Conference in March, Schiff gave the Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture on why the meltdown surprised seemingly everyone when it should have surprised no one. His talk is available here in audio, video, and as a Mises Daily.
“Repressed Inflation”: The Ailment of the Modern Economy
We have a vivid memory of this process in the case of prohibition in America, and we know that legislation of this kind in the end becomes a poisonous source of corruption. Can anyone seriously believe that what did not succeed in the case of drink is likely to succeed in the case of inflation, that is, simply to forbid it?
Correcting Krugman on Climate
In a previous article, I argued that Paul Krugman’s recent articles in support of government efforts to mitigate climate change — and in particular the Waxman-Markey legislation pending in Congress — were typically misleading.
The Trillion Dollar Withdrawal
What Goes Straight Up?
Graphs of economic statistics usually meander across the page like a walk through the forest; others will wiggle up and down with the business cycle like an EKG machine. Only recently have we been confronted with statistics that shoot up vertically, like a lie on a polygraph test.
The Fed will withdraw the money? oh sure
The Washington Post this morning writes about the central issue, buried in all the blah blah about stimulus this and stimulus that: what the heck is going to happen in light of the trillion (trillions?) in new money created by the Fed to create the illusion that the bust isn’t happening? How will the U.S. avoid a Weimar scenario?
More on the Expatriation Tax
As a coda to my article on the tax:
The HEART Act, passed on 17 June 2008, substantially modified provisions of the expatriation tax. Since the new law is materially different from the previous, I will attempt to explain the current tax consequences of expatriation.
Dirty Money?
There is quite a mystery surrounding the $81.5 million donated to fifteen colleges by a donor insisting upon complete anonymity. This mysterious donor has insisted that the recipient schools make no attempt to ascertain her identity.
Recently, I was listening to an NPR interview on the subject. In the interview the “expert,” Melissa Berman, president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, hypothesized about the identity of the mystery donor. So far so good.
