Every so often, I check my investment portfolio to see how it is doing. (I stay out of stocks these days, but that is due to my personal situation and is not to be taken as investment advice.) Portfolios are collections of various financial instruments that one is holding, and one always hopes that their value will head in the right direction over time.

Forty years ago, I reviewed Leonard Peikoff’s Ominous Parallels very negatively, and with one exception, of which the less said, the better, this proved to be the most controversial review I have ever written. Perhaps it is time for a second look. In what follows, I’ll discuss some of the book’s main points and then offer a few critical remarks.

President Biden’s student debt relief proposal created a storm of controversy. That is not surprising, since it was a transparent (and apparently successful) attempt to buy the votes of an important Democratic constituency, even though it created a target-rich environment for critics.

Whether you like it or not, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are coming. That’s the message in a recent tech column in the Wall Street Journal.

On Sunday, January 22, Argentine minister of economy Sergio Massa told the Financial Times that Argentina and Brazil were starting preparations for a common currency. We know that this is an old idea as it has been floating at least since the 1980s. But is it a good idea?