Booms and Busts

According to CBC News, "The Bank of Canada shocked markets today by cutting its key overnight lending rate by a quarter of a percentage point, citing the economic threat posed by plunging oil prices."

If given a choice, people will avoid paper money that is declining in value, thus putting a restraint on inflationary bank notes. To shield banks from this, they turned to a monopolist central bank that issues legal tender and helps private banks inflate.

The homeownership rate is now back where it was forty years ago. So what did all that federally-subsidized homebuying over the past decade accomplish? There was a lot of malinvestment, and a lot of politically-favored interest groups that got richer.

The homeownership rate is now back where it was forty years ago.

Jeff Deist and Martin Armstrong discuss Armstrong's story—both as an economic forecaster and as a thorn in the side of federal prosecutors.

Just in case you have any thoughts that people at the Fed might have become slightly less dovish on inflation, rest assured, they have not. 

The shale oil industry may simply be the next (Austrian) textbook example of malinvestment. 

Interviewed by host Albert Lu, Mark Thornton talks about the collapse in oil prices.

Our #1 show of the year is Patrick Barron in a two-part interview on the end of US dollar supremacy.

One thing the Chinese regime has not managed to do is erase the Chinese fondness for saving money. But in America, where over one-third of the population is on public assistance, it spends as much as possible.