Today’s intellectual framework considers government spending to be the solution to any economic and social problem. Be it helicopter money to households and businesses during the pandemic, subsidies for electric cars, or debt forgiveness to students, the government generosity must be growth and welfare enhancing by definition.

Over the weekend, Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes held an interview with President Joe Biden. See below for some of the highlights, starting with his thoughts on the annual inflation rate which came in at 8.3% for the month of August.

(Portions of the transcript and interview may have been edited by CBS. There exists these incomplete sentences in the video and transcript. We may never know what the President actually meant).

The leftist rag Mother Jones doesn’t like Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for the US Senate from Arizona. It’s no surprise that this magazine would oppose a conservative candidate, but according to the author of the piece, Noah Lanard, Masters is guilty of a terrible sin.

[This talk was delivered on Friday, September 2, 2022, to a student workshop at the Ron Paul Institute conference in northern Virginia.]

We must, therefore, emphasize that “we” are not the government; the government is not “us.” The government does not in any accurate sense “represent” the majority of the people.

Murray Rothbard wrote this in his popular Anatomy of the State. His point still stands to this day. The state cannot be said to represent “us” in any accurate or serious way. It may be even more true today than ever before. However, what is murkier today is who “us” even is. If “we” are not the government, then who are “we?”

[Chapter 9 of Per Bylund’s new book How to Think about the Economy: A Primer.]

By regulations, we mean restrictions imposed on the economy by government: prohibitions, license requirements, quality or safety standards, price controls, quotas, and subsidies, etc. Although they differ in their specifics and in their stated purposes, they are all implemented to induce a change in the economy.

The Boom-Bust Cycle

The economy’s constant flux is not random change but adjustments to the production apparatus in the pursuit of creating value. Value is a moving target because consumers want change over time and innovations and new opportunities. The constant adjustments mean the market is best understood as a process.

[Chapter 7 of Per Bylund’s new book How to Think about the Economy: A Primer.]