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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Minor Issues podcast. I am Mark Thornton at the Mises Institute.

In his book, When in the Course of Human Events, Charles Adams cautions against humiliating one’s opponents at the end of a war, as doing so only makes it more likely that conflict will erupt once more. The importance of this caution is well illustrated by the “Reconstruction” of the South.

President Trump said a couple of weeks ago that he would impose punitive tariffs on Mexican and Canadian exports to the United States. The main reason for this was that these countries did not do enough to stop illegal immigrants from entering our country. But this problem can be handled by better border control. There is no need for tariffs, which hurt American consumers, as we will explain below. Fortunately, he has suspended putting these tariffs into effect for one month, but who knows what he will do after that?

Jamaica is emerging as a rising economic power in Latin America and the Caribbean, widely regarded as an International Monetary Fund (IMF) success story.

Price inflation is rising, but it has nothing to do with tariffs. It has everything to do with the Fed’s policy and the Treasury’s uncontrolled spending.

The Core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, rose by 0.2 percent this month and remains stubbornly high at 2.8 percent annualized. The headline PCE Price Index increased by 0.3 percent, the first 0.3 percent monthly increase in eight months. This has pushed the annualized increase to 2.55 percent, the highest in seven months.

Last month, investor Ray Dalio suggested at The Financial Times that the UK is entering a debt spiral. According to FT:

Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of hedge fund firm Bridgewater Associates, has warned that the UK could be heading for a “debt death spiral”, in which it has to borrow more and more money to service its rising interest costs. 

Most economic commentators are of the view that when an economy is starting to experience difficult times the central bank should provide support to the economy by means of large increases in money supply. These increases are expected to strengthen the economic growth through the strengthening of individuals’ demand for goods and services.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Minor Issues podcast. I am Mark Thornton from the Mises Institute.

I have been criticized by listeners lately that the podcast has been concentrating on major issues, so today I’m going super-minor with the topic of piggy banks: yours and Uncle Sam’s. There are links to discounts for the next Mises Institute conference as well as the Bitcoin vs. Gold contest below.