Bank stocks are still floundering after they took a major hit in March of this year, coinciding with the failures of Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic Bank, and Signature Bank.

KRE, a regional banking ETF, is down 27 percent year-to-date, while KBE, an ETF with large banks, is down 16 percent year-to-date. Quarterly earnings will be reported by JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup tomorrow, and a few other big reports are due early next week.

This past weekend, the world witnessed absolute barbarism play out as Hamas agents brutally targeted Israeli civilians. The State of Israel, suffering from a historic failure to protect its residents, has predictably responded with major military operations in the Gaza strip. The result is a growing regional conflict fueled by historic feuds beyond the scale of traditional geopolitical considerations.

Over one hundred years ago, Ludwig von Mises wrote about the impossibility of successful rational economic planning under socialism. Yet China is still trying, even while its blend of markets and socialism results in shortages and surpluses. This article examines three contemporary initiatives spearheaded by Xi Jinping, each marked by an inherent problem: food insecurity, the aging crisis, and the real-estate bubble. Each problem was created by legislation and is being made worse by further legislation enacted to correct the problem.

Bloomberg reports that price inflation in Turkey was more than 60 percent in September. The 61.5 percent reading was released by the Turkish government’s statistical office. Being on the ground in Turkey for Hans-Hermann and Gülçin Hoppe’s Property and Freedom Society meeting, I can say the vibe was not hyperinflationary. The shelves are not empty and the port city of Bodrum is booming. Professor Hoppe told the crowd Bodrum has grown from a population of fifty thousand to a million for the whole peninsula.

In 2023, Canada’s parliament passed two significant pieces of legislation, Bills C-11 and C-18, both of which have stirred debates and concerns regarding their potential impact on online freedom and political censorship. Bill C-18, commonly known as the Online News Act, was introduced in the forty-fourth Canadian Parliament and received royal assent on June 22, 2023.

Before delving into the dangers of eliminating cash and mandating that all transactions be conducted by digital means, let us briefly discuss the legal aspects of money. In the United States, as in all economies that have legal tender laws, only cash is recognized as money. Some may think that the balance of their bank accounts is money too, but that is not quite the case. Your bank balance is one step removed from legal money.