Lost In Translation

Bernanke’s failure to pin himself down to a firm definition of exactly what he means when referring to the gold standard leaves his writing flawed from a scientific standpoint, says Cyd Malone. Science requires exactitude, consistency, and clarity; all are inseparable from its very nature. Science defines its terms clearly and sticks to them — if you can’t do that then it isn’t science. The gold standard is the essay’s whipping boy, its harmful effects his main warning, yet like “enemy combatant” it is loosely defined, at best.

Making Kids Worthless: Social Security’s Contribution to the Fertility Crisis

“Kinder haben die Leute immer — People will always have children,” assured Konrad Adenauer, the German Chancellor, in 1957. He was convinced that the future of the brave new pay-as-you-go social security system would not be undermined by demographic changes.

Adenauer was as wrong as ever. Social security schemes around the developed world are facing a major crisis due to greater longevity, declining retirement ages and — lo and behold — below-replacement fertility rates.

The Living Reality of Military-Economic Fascism

Military-supply firms exemplify a fundamentally corrupt type of organization. Their income comes to them only after it has first been extorted from the taxpayers at gunpoint — hence their compensation amounts to receiving stolen property. They are hardly unwitting or unwilling recipients, however, because they are not drafted to do what they do. No wallflowers at this dance of death, they eagerly devote strenuous efforts to encouraging government officials to wring ever-greater amounts from the taxpayers and to distribute the loot in ways that enrich the contractors, their suppliers, and their employees.

An unlikely champion

From the heart of the would-be global Hoi Phylakes — the Council for Foreign Relations — comes a piece written by their Director of International Economics, Benn Steil, which bemoans the costs imposed by monetary nationalism and floating exchange rates and even suggests that ‘digital gold’ accounts might one day become the money of the future. Truly remarkable!

Bubble Psychology in 1837

The spirit of speculation and adventure pervaded the entire community ... and crowds of individuals of every description—the credulous and the suspicious—the crafty and the bold—the raw and the inexperienced—the intelligent and the ignorant—politicians, lawyers, physicians, and divines, hastened to venture some portion of their property in schemes of which scarcely any thing was known except the name.

That description of U.S. business culture just prior to the Panic of 1837 is from Scott A.

Overproduction and Underconsumption Fallacies

[This article is Professor Reisman’s introduction to an excerpt from James Mill’s pamphlet Commerce Defended, available in the Study Guide.]

James Mill (1773–1836) is perhaps best known as the father and educator of John Stuart Mill. He deserves to be remembered for much more, however. Not only was he an influential popularizer of the ideas of his friend, David Ricardo, but also, as appears from the excerpt here presented, an important economist in his own right.

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