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
Economists and pundits mistakenly call the Federal Reserve System’s security holdings a portfolio. It is anything but. Original Article: “The Fed’s Portfolio Is Nonexistent: The Fed Does Not Invest. It Destroys Investments” This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher
One of my pet peeves with Paul Krugman is his constant rewriting of history, a rewriting that just happens to coincide with left-wing political talking points. For example, we hear that the Great Depression occurred because Herbert Hoover was a staunch believer in laissez-faire and took the advice of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who called
[ This article was originally published August 10, 2010. ] The Paul Reveres of the economics profession are riding their horses, warning Americans, “Deflation is coming! Deflation is coming!” From Paul Krugman to Joseph Gagnon to the various mainstream news publications, the message is the same — the government needs to induce inflation now, or
No one can argue about the current moribund economy, complete with falling stock prices, nonexistent profits, layoffs, airline bankruptcies, and exploding federal and state budget deficits. People certainly have argued about the cause of this downturn (Democrats and their socialist allies insist that the relatively small, backloaded tax cuts of
In recent weeks, the stock market has staged a mild rally. Though the most recent unemployment numbers are well over six percent, Republicans, as well as a few market analysts, are claiming that the long overdue economic recovery has arrived. While I wish that were the case, the facts demonstrate otherwise; this is not a recovery, but simply an
In February, 2001, I saw the end of the credit-filled boom , as the stock market went bust, and predicted recessionary times, which soon followed. It seems, however, that Washington, D.C., is one great big toga party, and if it is true that Blutarsky of “Animal House” became Senator Blutarsky (as the film’s credits tell us at the end), perhaps
In a recent column, Paul Krugman tries to explain the “Bush bust.” Instead of clear, cogent economic theory, we are fed a mass of contradictory ideas, a bit of political partisanship, and explanations that simply make no sense. When one attempts to apply economic theory in order to explain certain events, one is reminded of Carl Menger’s dictum:
As a long-time critic of the part-time economist and full-time political partisan Paul Krugman, I would be remiss if I did not give him at least some credit for being able to point out the obvious: Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme really is a prototype for the modern US economy. Yes, Krugman is right, but, alas, I am also required to add that a
The lead story of the March 9, 2009, edition of Newsweek says it all: “Stop Saving Now!” Writer Daniel Gross declares, For our $14 trillion economy to recover and thrive, hoarders must open their wallets and become consumers, and businesses must once again be willing to roll the dice. Nobody is advocating a return to the debt-fueled days of
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