Recent Podcast Episodes

Kevin Warsh may talk tough, but Mark Thornton argues the Fed’s real mandate hasn’t changed: finance Washington, protect Wall Street, and let inflation grind down everyone else.

Systems do not collapse when they finally become unstable; they appear stable until the moment their failure can no longer be ignored.

As technology advances, progressives believe that this time, all of their social engineering and attempts to establish socialism will finally come to fruition. They are in for a rude surprise.

Bob sits down with Harvard Economics Professor Pol Antras to discuss his new paper applying Böhm-Bawerk's average period of production to international trade.

The question is not plan or no plan. Everyone plans. The question is whose plan—and what happens to yours when it conflicts with the planner's. Mises traces the path from Marx to Comte to the social engineers, and shows why the destination is always the same.

The president has declared that he loves inflation. What economic fallacies is he likely adopting that leads to this conclusion?

While China’s economy has boomed, many people wrongly associate that success with the Chinese government’s industrial policies. Intervention has created many problems there—just as it has done elsewhere.

Among the key men involved in the American Revolution and the following periods, we find an oft-repeated concern that may seem foreign to us today—the threat of standing armies. This reality became concrete in the Newburgh conspiracy in 1783.

While Graham Platner has become controversial because of his reckless past and violent behavior, the real objection to his being elected a US Senator should be to his reckless socialist proposals that would have disastrous consequences.

On this episode of Power and Market, Ryan, Connor, and Tho discuss the first FOMC meeting under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. Out? Forward Guidance. In? Task forces! What should we take away from Warsh's first time addressing the financial press, and will his tenure be an improvement from the past, or present new dangers to the public?

Names for historical periods like "Renaissance" and "Enlightenment" did not descend to us out of the heavens. Historians and propagandists of centuries past created these names, often for political purposes. 

Because government monetary authorities have been interfering with interest rates for decades, investors have no more confidence in the bond markets, as they expect more interference and more unpredictability.

Once we look beyond a small shift in rhetoric and emphasis, there is, so far, no reason to believe that the Fed is headed toward anything other than business as usual. 

Sure, the earnings average was up year over year, but prices increased more than earnings did. In fact, price inflation hit a 38-month high in May.

Elon Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire has triggered a familiar round of progressive outrage. But the imprecise focus on wealth distribution obscures the real issue: how much of modern wealth is acquired through politics rather than production.

Economists like Harold Demsetz and Ronald Coase based their property rights views on utilitarianism. Murray Rothbard based his on justice.

When inflation surges, the first thing on the government's agenda is for the Federal Reserve to try to force up interest rates. However, as Frank Shostak writes, that might not be the best strategy.

Prediction markets, while obviously imperfect, still work well because people voluntarily put their money where their beliefs are. Naturally, the government wants to shut them down.

Unfortunately, the Pope does not understand the role that monetary inflation plays in fueling AI's excesses. If he did, he might lead a necessary anti-AI spiritual alliance for sound money. 

In spite of repeated claims from the Federal Reserve that monetary policy is at least moderately restrictive, there is no sign of any slowing in money-supply growth.