After three decades of promarket reforms, extreme poverty in China has been virtually eradicated. So President Xi Jinping now has the leverage to shift his attention to reducing the wealth gap in Chinese society. In a speech to the Chinese Communist Party in August, Xi touted “common prosperity” for all Chinese as an essential requirement of socialism and modernization.
There are many good recommendations promoted by Austrian school economists for improving the economy. Although we enjoy successes periodically, most--such as deregulating trucking and airline pricing--involve eliminating previous government interventions. These successes are to be celebrated, of course. But no one can deny that government intervention into the economy has continued, despite these occasional success stories.
No Free Lunch: Six Economic Lies You’ve Been Taught and Probably Believe
by Caleb S. Fuller
Freiling Publishing, 2021. 110 pp.
In April 2021 the governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, said that the federal government printed an additional NGN 60 billion (60 billion naira) to be shared between all the states at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). This was denied by the minister of finance, Hajia Zenab Ahmed. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, was a bit more forthright. He said, “That is our job. To print is about lending money.
If people who torture animals are psychopaths, then what are government officials who use taxpayer dollars to fund animal torture? Many are asking this question in the wake of revelations that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci—high priest of the COVID cult—funded medical “research” involving the torture of puppies. This led “Fire Fauci” to trend on Twitter, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to call for his resignation.
The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded this year to two journalists “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”. They are none other than Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, who have each been actively crusading for press freedom, all while questioning the powers of the governments in their home countries through their media platforms.
Mandatory Vaccination against the Covid-19 virus is framed as a moral issue by the prestige media. Public health experts are propagating the narrative that failure to become vaccinated is endangering the lives of others. Writing in the New York Times, Ezekiel J Emanuel, Aaron Glickman, and Amaya Diana contend that vaccination is a moral imperative: “None of us likes being told what to do.
Whenever politicians and media outlets discuss inflation, they invariably use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as their measure. The CPI is only one of several price indices on top of the various measures of the money supply that underlie aggregate price changes. Strictly speaking, the CPI does not measure inflation per se, but rather the consequences of monetary expansion on consumer products. In macroeconomics, the CPI is one of the key indicators of economic health, and it is this inflation measure that economists use to calculate real GDP.
Rigged! How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections
by Mollie Hemingway
Regnery Publishing, 2021, 432 pp.
Mollie Hemingway, an editor of the online magazine The Federalist, calls our attention in this well-researched book to a problem of vital significance. She is a supporter of Donald Trump, though not an uncritical one, and writes from this point of view, but whether you like the former president or not, you cannot ignore her message.
