Taxing Capital Leads to Capital Consumption

The Misesian tradition provides essential insights into the nature of capital. From Frédéric Bastiat to Murray N. Rothbard, Austrian capital theory excels.

Bastiat illustrated gains from capital by giving us the anecdote of the neighbor who wanted to borrow a timber planer. Rothbard gave us the examples of royalties in the extractive industry to illustrate capital consumption. The list goes on. Often, capital’s exceptional output is because it behaves as both nonlinear and time specific.

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Donavan Lingerfelt graduated from Georgia College & State University in 2022 with a bachelors in economics and no

Eli Dourado

Eli Dourado is an economist and regulatory hacker living in Washington, DC, and a senior research fellow at the Cente

How the Dollar Became the World’s Top Global Currency

In March 2009, in the midst of recession, then Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner was pressed to respond on the question of whether or not another currency—possibly the IMF’s special drawing rights (SDRs)—might displace the US dollar as the dominant global reserve currency. Geithner responded that he’s open to more use of SDRs but then felt the need to clarify with “The dollar remains the world’s dominant reserve currency and I think that’s likely to continue for a long period of time.”