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Latest Articles: Economy
Money Supply Growth Went Negative for the Third Month in a Row, and Is Near a 35-Year Low
Post Date: 2023-03-08 20:59:06 by Charles_Byrd
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Money supply growth fell again in January, falling even further into negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. January's drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years. Since April 2021, money supply growth has slowed quickly, and since November, we've been seeing the money supply contract for the first time since the 1990s. The last time the year-over-year (YOY) change in the money supply slipped into negative territory was in November 1994. At that time, negative growth continued for fifteen months, finally turning positive again in January 1996. Click for ...
Decades of Subsidies Have Made the Essentials of Middle-Class Life Increasingly Difficult To Afford
Post Date: 2023-03-03 02:08:35 by Charles_Byrd
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Perhaps the simplest way to diagnose the problem with American politics right now is that it is out of touch. Democrats and Republicans have spent the better part of the last decade arguing about partisan peccadillos and culture war obsessions, while middle-class concerns have languished. And thus a new movement has risen mostly but not exclusively on the technocratic center-left, intent on refocusing liberal politics in general and Democratic politicians in particular on workaday economic concerns. This movement has many strains and individual obsessions, but it is united by a shared thesis: The basics of middle-class life—especially but not only housing, education, and health ...
The Coming Recession Will Be a Global One
Post Date: 2023-03-03 02:00:21 by Charles_Byrd
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Over one hundred years ago, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises discovered what causes the boom-bust business cycle. As Mises explained, the boom is caused by central and commercial banks creating money out of thin air. This lowers interest rates, which encourages businesses to borrow this newly created money to fund capital- intensive investment projects. Click for Full Text!
Market Morons Finally Forced to Face Reality
Post Date: 2023-03-03 01:56:44 by Charles_Byrd
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Investors have been slower than a tank of turtles swimming in molasses when it comes to grasping reality, but they may be getting the message on inflation and the Fed’s fight ahead at last. That said, one should never underestimate the resolve of people to enshrine their wishes as unholy doctrines in order to continue chasing the phantasms of their greed like drunken gamblers in a smoke-clouded casino. This bear market — now well over a year long — has produced many rallies that were exemplary in demonstrating that unattractive quality of the human condition. News stories across multiple categories of The Daily Doom last Friday screamed the message of inflation — how ...
Stainless Steal
Post Date: 2023-03-01 18:10:12 by Charles_Byrd
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The decay in quality reveals that the collapse of the neoliberal-hyper- financialization-hyper-globalization model has already occurred. I've often addressed the dismaying decline of quality over the past 30+ years, for example, The "Crapification" of the U.S. Economy Is Now Complete (February 9, 2022). Click for Full Text!
Peter Schiff: History Shows It’s Impossible to Put the Inflation Genie Back in the Bottle
Post Date: 2023-03-01 17:51:05 by Charles_Byrd
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The markets basically shrugged off the hotter-than-expected inflation data for January. Most people remain convinced that the Fed can easily get price inflation back to 2% without wrecking the economy. But in his podcast, Peter explains that stuffing that inflation genie back into the bottle is a lot harder than most people seem to think. Both the CPI and the PPI came in hotter than expected in January. Click for Full Text!
Why Austrian Economists Are Not Employed as Policy Advisers
Post Date: 2023-03-01 17:49:38 by Charles_Byrd
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In the (1955) edition of his top-selling Economics text, Paul Samuelson claimed economists had finally determined how economies worked. As he put it: In recent years 90 percent of American economists have stopped being “Keynesian economists” or “anti-Keynesian economists.” Instead they have worked towards a synthesis of whatever is valuable in older economics and in modern theories of income determination. The result might be called neo-classical synthesis and is accepted in its broad outlines by all but about 5 percent of extreme left wing and right wing writers. Click for Full Text!
When the Government Makes Poverty Worse
Post Date: 2023-02-28 19:48:22 by Charles_Byrd
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For individuals struggling to make ends meet, the government might be causing more problems than it is solving. As part of a new report released Monday, a survey of more than 1,000 low- income Pennsylvanians found that taxes are often a major barrier to economic security—ranking ahead of more commonly discussed problems such as credit card debt and student loans. Among those surveyed, all of whom have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (about $53,000 annually for a family of four), the average respondent reported paying $4,575 per year in taxes. Click for Full Text!
Weaponizing Global Depression
Post Date: 2023-02-27 16:46:45 by Charles_Byrd
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Before we get started, I need to stipulate that I don't have an opinion one way or the other about weaponizing global depression: I don't agree or disagree, I don't "like" it or dislike it, I have no emotional investment in whether you "like" it or "dislike" it or if we agree or disagree. I'm addressing the topic because it's an interesting dynamic. The general assumption now is that everything is propaganda, i.e. that every shred of content has been stripped of the 90% of messy reality to leave the shiny 10% that protects someone's vested interests and emotional stake. While propaganda is indeed ubiquitous and overabundant, not ...
Saint Augustine, Proto-Austrian
Post Date: 2023-02-24 05:24:31 by Charles_Byrd
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In a past Mises Wire article, I’ve written about how Saint Thomas Aquinas’s definition of hope correlates incredibly well with what Carl Menger would describe in his definition a good six centuries later. Click for Full Text!
Biden versus Bastiat
Post Date: 2023-02-24 02:03:44 by Charles_Byrd
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Whether well-intentioned or otherwise, a “Made in China” ban for construction materials on federally funded infrastructure projects will benefit a chosen political class to the detriment of all else. “This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly . . . We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights.” Click for Full Text!
Why Biden’s Socialist State Will Fail
Post Date: 2023-02-21 02:43:28 by Charles_Byrd
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So now it’s out in the open: Joe Biden is creating an out-and-out socialist state. In his State-of-the-Union speech last week he bragged about interfering in gas prices, election reform, electric vehicles, bridges, computer chips, “20,000 infrastructure projects,” and Medicaid expansion, and vowed that he would go on to put the Federal government into every aspect of Americans’ lives, including price controls, airline and ticket fees, child care, pre-K schooling, student debt, teachers’ salaries, leaded pipes, non-compete agreements, abortion “rights,” billionaires’ tax, police reform, anti-trust enforcement, big tech limitations, housing, and ...
The Return of Inflation: It’s Back, it’s sticky, and it’s bound to get ugly!
Post Date: 2023-02-16 17:30:25 by Charles_Byrd
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The big news carried in The Daily Doom today was recession after recession and inflation after inflation. They’re both back (or “back to back”), and boy are they mad! This year’s big predictions on The Great Recession Blog appear to be lining up to start tearing things up this week as a nice little gooey Valentine’s surprise that ain’t yo’ mama’s box o’ chocolates! Click for Full Text!
The New Normal: Death Spirals and Speculative Frenzies
Post Date: 2023-02-16 17:19:53 by Charles_Byrd
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The vapid discussions about "soft" or "hard" landings for the economy are akin to asking if the Titanic's encounter with the iceberg was "soft" or "hard:" either way, the ship was doomed, just as the global economy is doomed by The New Normal of Death Spirals and Speculative Frenzies. Death Spirals are the inevitable result of entrenched interests clinging on to the status quo and thwarting any adaptation or evolution that might threaten or diminish their share of the swag--and that includes any real change because any consequential modification has the potential to upset the gravey train. Click for Full Text!
Food and Shelter Prices Keep Climbing as CPI Growth Hits a Three-Month High
Post Date: 2023-02-15 20:00:13 by Charles_Byrd
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The federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released new price inflation data today, and according to the report, price inflation during the month decelerated slightly, coming in at the lowest year- over- year increase in sixteen months. According to the BLS, Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rose 6.4 percent year over year in January before seasonal adjustment. That’s down very slightly from December’s year- over- year increase of 6.5 percent, and January is the twenty-third month in a row with inflation above the Fed’s arbitrary 2 percent inflation target. Price inflation has now been above 6.0 percent for sixteen months in a row. Meanwhile, ...
Biden’s Stock Buyback Tax Would Hit the Little Guy
Post Date: 2023-02-13 16:35:26 by Charles_Byrd
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In his State of the Union address last week, President Biden proposed quadrupling the stock buyback tax from 1% to 4% of the value of the stock bought. This proposed increase would have pernicious consequences for efficient capital allocation throughout the economy by impairing how markets function. Stock buybacks don’t take money away from pro-growth investments. Most buyback funds are reinvested in the stock market and in private equity, where they can be put to more productive use. A policy such as the one Mr. Biden is proposing distorts economic decisions that could harm the savings that many people rely on for retirement. Click for Full Text! Click for Full Text!
The Power to Destroy
Post Date: 2023-02-13 16:26:19 by Charles_Byrd
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Fifty years ago, a remarkable libertarian, personal friend, witty Georgite, then editor of Human Events, came out with a landmark book, The Income Tax: Root of All Evil (text and PDF). Its author was Frank Chodorov who saw raging about him—what’s new?—interventionism, welfarism, political mischief and corruption galore, an ongoing mangling of the limited government model of the Founding Fathers. Hence the "all evil" in his subtitle, which he described to me privately as "the rape of society." But what was new, then and now, goes beyond many a neocon’s plea today for a renewed Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights or a flat-rate income tax. Instead, Chodorov ...
It's Too Early to Tell If We're in a Period of Real Disinflation
Post Date: 2023-02-11 01:23:58 by Charles_Byrd
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Are asset inflation and its bellwether, the euro, really heading into a new spring following a winter marked by the now-fading scare of Fed disinflation (alternatively described as “restrictive monetary policy”)? A computer powered by artificial intelligence might well conclude so, based on reading a million websites. Yet there are grounds for skepticism. The laboratory of financial history is replete with examples of both Indian summers of asset inflation that fade quickly (so-called bear market rallies) and alternatively of premature celebration about disinflation when in fact a new virulent inflation episode is emerging. Click for Full Text!
The Fight Over the Debt Ceiling Is Just Beginning
Post Date: 2023-02-09 18:25:00 by Charles_Byrd
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People are uneasy about the debt ceiling fight. Many think it's unhealthy and a sign of poor fiscal management, and they are right. However, they should get used to it. These budget fights will keep getting more frequent and more intense. That's because no one wants to talk about budget restraints. The truth is that existing spending commitments are rapidly shrinking the share of the budget that politicians have control over as their appetite for spending expands. Those who believe that government is the answer to all problems are always full of ideas about new programs to be funded. They want to prepare for the next pandemic or emergency by funding new government capabilities. ...
The FTC's Antitrust Radicals Are Rebuked Again in Federal Court
Post Date: 2023-02-08 22:25:55 by Charles_Byrd
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A federal judge last week rejected the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) attempt to block Meta's acquisition of virtual reality (V.R.) company Within Unlimited. According to Reuters, an FTC official said the agency had not decided if it would take the case before an in-house administrative law judge. While the FTC was stymied in its efforts, it's worth examining the legal theory the FTC deployed to stop the acquisition. The FTC argued that if Meta did not purchase Within Unlimited, the tech giant might one day create its own VR product to compete with the startup. The government argued that it had a legitimate interest in fostering future competition by blocking the deal. Click ...
Another Recession Sign: Part-Time Work Is Growing Faster than Full-Time Work
Post Date: 2023-02-07 18:18:56 by Charles_Byrd
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The Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) released new jobs data on Friday. According to the report, seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs rose 517,000 jobs, which was well above expectations. The words used by the media to describe the report included “stunner” and “wow.” President Joe Biden claimed the number proves his administration has delivered economic prosperity. The administration has also noted that in the official numbers, the unemployment rate is at a multidecade low. This, Biden and his supporters insist, proves the economy is remarkably strong. There are at least a few things going on that are problematic for this narrative, however. For one, the Fed is ...
The Price-Gouging State
Post Date: 2023-02-07 17:41:21 by Charles_Byrd
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Friends and family are talking, on Facebook, about the rapid rise in the price of eggs. Their posts also report that there are plenty of eggs in the dairy sections of local grocery stores. A few people, along with some reporters, blame this rapid increase in the price of eggs on price- gouging corporations. State governments take price gouging seriously. Section 396-R of New York’s General Business law defines price gouging as “unconscionably excessive pricing of essential goods and services during any abnormal disruption of the market, such as severe weather, power outages, strikes, or national or local emergencies.” This law also prohibits price gouging “by all ...
Yes, the US Government Has Defaulted Before
Post Date: 2023-02-07 17:32:37 by Charles_Byrd
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The regime is trying to whip up maximum hysteria or the chances that the US government could default on its debts if the debt ceiling is not raised. Anyone whose been paying attention for a while, however, knows there's a 99.99 percent chance that the parties involved will soon raise the debt ceiling and the US will go back to adding to its $30-trillion-plus debt hoard as usual. Yet the political posturing over the debt ceiling always offers the media and Democratic politicians a chance to assure us that any default will bring about a second Great Depression and financial collapse. Click for Full Text!
Fed’s Giant Economic Science Experiment
Post Date: 2023-02-06 14:53:40 by Charles_Byrd
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The Fed holds interest rates to be its primary control valve, with lower ones providing a stimulus to the GDP and higher ones a brake. Self- evidently, therefore, interest rates below the inflation level are a stimulus because they amount to economic subsidization of debt, and the spending or investment which results. Still, even the primitive Phillips Curve theory of the growth/inflation trade-offs screams out that the Fed is way behind the curve, even based on its own defective economic models. After all, why in the world has it permitted its ultimate control valve and benchmark—the 10-year UST—to carry a negative real yield for 36 of the last 38 months. Click for Full Text!
Poverty is a political problem, not just an economic one
Post Date: 2023-02-03 15:20:52 by Charles_Byrd
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Citing “the lowest rate of social mobility among rich countries,” Philip Alston, an NYU law professor and United Nations special rapporteur, argues that inequality in the U.S. has become a human rights issue. Alston, whose U.N. role focuses on the relationship between extreme poverty and civil rights, laments, “Poor people have no chance of having their voices heard. No chance of influencing public policy.” Alston says that “[i]n a rich country like the U.S.A., the persistence of extreme poverty is a political choice made by those in power,” and of course he’s right, but not in the way he thinks. To progressives in the mainstream of American politics, ...
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