U.S. Economy

The most enduring economic myth of the twentieth century is the idea that FDR‘s New Deal pulled America out of the Great Depression. In truth, his policies destroyed the hopes of millions.

President Trump has declared today “Liberation Day,” because many of his tariffs come into force. His team is taking a gamble that either the law of supply and demand does not apply to trade or that the American public will be uncharacteristically fine with higher prices.

Patrick Newman joins Bob to discuss Simon Kuznets’ role in developing GNP and GDP metrics and Kuznets’ concerns over how government spending is accounted for in economic statistics.

International trade is the topic du jour. Mark Thornton shares his recent presentation on a timely and important book featuring many of your favorite authors.

While Ben Bernanke has accused free market and sound money advocates of pursuing “discredited” systems, he and his lieutenants were following a truly discredited way of thinking: socialism. The man who supposedly “saved the world” actually destabilized it.

An enduring myth among American historians is that President Hoover‘s response to the Depression was to let the free market work. This is totally false.

Is “austerity” in the future for the US Government? Awash in debt and facing economic crises, the government may have to go on a diet, something neither Congress nor the president want to do.

Austrian economists agree that ending the Federal Reserve System would be a major step forward in reclaiming sanity in government spending and bolstering the US economy. Here is one plan to make ending the Fed a reality.

Our current paper fiat money system comes from a long process of building up state power that destroyed private money, ended truly private banking, and abolished the market system of competing currencies. It took 300 years, and we are now facing the inflationary results. 

Although tariffs and other issues are getting the most news coverage, a harbinger of recession is looming: the slow collapse of commercial real estate values. This is the result of reckless policies at the Federal Reserve and the Fed cannot fix it.