The Telegraph last week printed a very muddled article by Jeremy Warner entitled “Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to turn Britain into Zimbabwe” that unintentionally made the case against the quantitative easing that is destroying market economies around the globe. Corbyn, who
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The implications of a reduction of Chinese holdings of US government debt
Dear Readers, Below is my response to a reader of my blog, who asked about the implications of China reducing its holdings of US treasury debt. Pat Barron Dear Lawrence, I think that in the simplest terms, China is exiting
My letter to the Financial Times, London re: The FT sides with counterfeiters and confiscators
Re: The case for retiring another barbarous relic Dear Sirs: I was appalled at your supposed “case” for eliminating cash, which you yourselves describe as the peoples’ “go-to safe asset”. And what IS your case? One, “cash…limits the central banks’
My letter to The Times, London re: Legal tender laws protect unsound money
Dear Sirs: I will not take the time required to refute point-by-point Mr. Ed Conway’s latest attack upon a gold-backed currency. It is obvious that he is completely ignorant of monetary theory and history. Rather, I will ask Mr. Conway
L’externalité, le bien public, et l’intervention de l’État
Un argument classique en faveur de l’intervention de l’État dans l’économie consiste à stipuler qu’il faut corriger les « échecs du marché ». Sans grande surprise, les économistes contemporains en dénombrent plusieurs. Je veux ici présenter deux exemples analytiquement similaires de ces
Trump: The Art of the Bureaucrat
Donald Trump says America’s problems are managerial. The political class is “stupid,” and “horrible negotiators.” He can fix the country’s problems instantaneously with his own entrepreneurial ability and by drafting into government service the likes of multi-billionaire Carl Ichan. Trump
Austrians vs. The World On Canadian Fiscal Austerity
I don’t know whether this is something the average Canadian discusses over coffee, but the sharp fiscal turnaround in the mid-1990s is still providing fodder for today’s economists to argue. In September 2014, I summarized the Canadian budget triumph, in
Krugman Unwittingly Makes the Case for Cutting Government Spending
Ah, it was so much easier to be a Keynesian before the Internet remembered everything… From 2010 through 2013, Paul Krugman had been hitting his New York Times readers with two main points: (1) The U.S. government was irrationally turning towards fiscal
Gold Prices Disprove Krugman
Recently Krugman wrote an op ed ridiculing Ron Paul titled, “The Old Man and the CPI.” (In case you don’t get the reference, he’s alluding to Hemingway.) Ron Paul has responded in this video, but I want to focus on
QE is “Not on the Table,” says Joe Oliver
In a world where central banks are given free rein over the supply of money and credit, and where any examination of these secretive institutions is considered interference with their “independence,” Finance Minister Joe Oliver’s comments about QE have not
Reminder: Patent Trolls Are Not the Worst Thing About Intellectual Property
Patent trolls are companies whose entire business model is to file patent suits against legitimate businesses, in order to extort them for money. Patent trolls are bad. However, they are not the worst thing about the current intellectual property regime.
Are Austrian Criticisms of Mainstream Economics Still Relevant?
Occasionally, when Austrians try to distinguish their brand of doing economics from the mainstream, they get hit with accusations that they are attacking straw men; that no one believes what Austrians claim is the mainstream approach. Is this true? Are
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My letter to the Wall Street Journal re: A strange definition of “good news”
Re: Consumers Prime the U.S. Pump Dear Sirs: Your definition of “good news” for the U.S. economy is defined as an increase in “real, or inflation-adjusted, personal-consumption expenditure”, which was driven by a “savings rate, which slipped to 4.8% from
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A Bankrupt Candidate for a Bankrupt Nation
“Voters vote on how they feel and what their instinct is,” Howard Dean said on Morning Joe, explaining Donald Trump’s popularity in the polls and in particular with the New Hampshire focus group that John Heilemann spoke with. I think
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Keynesians Wrong About Stimulus, Coming AND Going
In a previous post here at Mises CA I chronicled the hole Krugman keeps digging for himself regarding the botched warnings over the so-called “sequester” in 2013. Specifically, Krugman’s latest excuse is to say that when he argued back in
A fourth economic fallacy about Greece
Recently I posted a short essay listing three economic fallacies about the Greek crisis. The three were (1) the euro is too strong a currency for Greece, (2) debasing its own currency will allow Greece to export its way to
My letter to Wolfgang Munchau of the Financial Times, London
Re: The make believe world of eurozone rules Dear Sir: In your otherwise fine column today-Monday, July 27, 2015-you conclude with this statement: “…Germany does not want to grant Greece debt relief for political reasons, and is using European law
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Economic Fallacies about Greece
There has been much unscientific economic pronouncements about Greece’s financial problems and especially how to solve them. Below is a short list of three of these economic fallacies. 1. The euro is too strong a currency for Greece. This statement
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