Steve Hanke, Professor of Applied Economics and Distinguished Senior Scholar at the Mises Institute, joins Kitco News to explain why M2 money supply is shrinking, how sanctions are eroding trust in the U.S. dollar, and why gold remains the real reserve asset in 2025. We cover dedollarization, BRICS ambitions, U.S. debt, tariffs, and why China’s deflation could ripple through commodities and the global market.

Pressure on Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve continues to mount as both Wall Street and the White House demand more easy money to keep asset price inflation accelerating ever upward. These inflationists also hope that easy money-policy will somehow reverse the current stagnating trend in employment. In recent months, both President Trump and the usual Wall Street outlets have insisted that the Fed reduce the target policy interest rate to ensure that stock prices and real estate prices continue to skyrocket ever upward. 

Better Money: Gold, Fiat, or Bitcoin?
Lawrence H. White
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023; xxii + 236 pp.

The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism
Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2023; 432 pp.

Krzysztof Turowski (krzysztof.szymon.turowski@gmail.com) is an assistant professor at the Theoretical Computer Science Department, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.

Social Justice Fallacies
by Thomas Sowell
New York: Basic Books, 2023; VIII + 201 PP.

Charles Amos (charlesamos1846@gmail.com) writes The Musing Individualist Substack.

In rejecting racial polylogism, Ludwig von Mises argued that reason and logic are universal attributes common to all human beings. We do not all share the same race, culture, abilities, skills, intelligence, or interests, but we share in common the ability to reason and to communicate with each other based on reason and logic. Similarly, Friedrich von Hayek saw equality under the rule of law as a set of general rules common to everyone and applied in the same way to everyone without regard to race, sex, or creed.

A couple of months ago, I obtained a permit from the US Forest Service to travel 4x4 and off highway vehicle trails in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The permit cost $25 plus postage, and was valid for a year. The trails my group rode on a Saturday turned out to be crowded with other vehicles, and we spent hours waiting for other groups to pass. I suspect many users would have been willing to pay a higher price for higher-demand trails or peak usage times, maybe incentivizing some with schedule flexibility to enjoy the trails on weekdays.