In spite of the fact that real wages are going down, the cost of living is soaring, and new jobless claims are heading up at a rapid pace, and the savings rate has collapsed, what really matters to the White House, it seems, is the “technical definition” of recession.
The passion of the green movement has captured the world’s attention with its incessant demands for solutions to taper carbon emissions. Unfortunately, these appeals are rarely questioned due to the clout of environmental activists. We are automatically expected to endorse the assumptions of climate activists or be accused of science denialism. But closer introspection exposes the unscientific approach of climate activism.
I got a D the first time I took economics in college. I was right out of high school and directionless. I was content living at home, working at a video store (remember those?), golfing and partying.
Plus, I was obsessed with my instructor’s uneven sideburns and the girls in class. Not the model student.
Obviously, this changed, but it came to mind recently when reading Joseph C. Sternberg’s review of former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s new book, “21st Century Monetary Policy” in the Wall Street Journal.
The misconception that money and natural resources are wealth is rampant among intellectuals and other educated individuals, and even economists. Prevailing monetary and economic policy choices reflect this entrenched misconception.
Consider the fact that since the 2008 Great Recession, leading central banks have injected trillions of dollars, euros, yens, etc., into economies and have monetized record-setting levels of government debt under the assumption that more money and more (deficit) spending will solve problems. Still, economies continue to falter.
The war in Ukraine has brought back the debate on international security among European countries, especially in the countries of the former Soviet bloc in Central and Eastern Europe. Most of these countries, such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, broke free from the communist regime with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s.
