Here’s Why We Tolerate Fake Check Scams
“Solving the problem of job scam checks isn’t as easy as one might think. Changes to a tightly-wound system like the check system involve tradeoffs. You don’t get something for nothing.” ~ J.P. Koning
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Money, Markets, and Economic Order
“Provided there is widespread social respect and protection for the institution of private property, we can have both markets and money, and the material bounties they create. But if we fiddle with markets and money, for example by conducting misguided political experiments, we jeopardize the very roots of our economic well-being.” ~ Alexander W. Salter
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In Defense of Bitcoin Billionaires
“It’s refreshing to read an account of early Bitcoin – not the programming, the cryptography, or the scandals, but the dreamy futurists and their financiers.” ~ Joakim Book
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Who Bears the Burden of Dollars’ Falling Purchasing Power?
“Inflation is not a one-trick pony, with an easily predictable outcome. Rather, it does several things at the same time. Looking at claims like the eradication of a dollar’s purchasing power is misleading: it is not the case that inflation has ripped off savers by eradicating 97% of their savings’ worth.” ~ Joakim Book
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The Fed’s Liquidity Confusion
“Fed lending to nonbank companies and municipalities is not liquidity provision; it’s credit allocation. It’s an area in which the Fed should not be involved.” ~ Thomas L. Hogan
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What Can Be Done to Remedy the Coin Shortage?
“The US Mint could focus all of its resources on producing dimes and quarters, not silly pennies. This would put an end to the US’s coin shortage, almost immediately.” ~ J.P. Koning
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It’s Time to End the Fed’s Dual Mandate
“The choice before us is simple: a central bank that is highly restricted, and therefore effective and independent, or one that is dominated by short-run political concerns, and therefore incompetent and subservient.” ~ Alexander Salter
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It’s Time for a Taxpayer Debit Card
“Distributing EIP cards instead of checks should reduce the government’s costs of paying relief, speed up the payments pipeline, and provide Americans with a cheaper way of accessing funds than going to check cashing outlets.” ~ J.P. Konig
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Cash Is King in COVID-19
We’re still early in this crisis, so who knows what patterns in cash demand will emerge. But for now, cash is filling its normal role as alleviator of uncertainty. To cope with the turmoil, people are withdrawing a bit more of the stuff. And that’s fine!
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Don’t Hand Over Your Money to Uncompetitive Banks
Having lived abroad for most of the last seven years, I am painfully aware of the challenges that emerge from having incomes, assets, and costs in different currencies. Sometimes that yields you unexpected windfalls, like when the British pound (GBP) b …
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In Praise of the $1 Bill
In a new report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) considers the financial benefit of switching to a $1 coin.
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The War on Cashless Stores
If you’re a store owner in Philadelphia or the state of New Jersey, and you don’t accept cash from your customers, pretty soon you’ll be breaking the law.
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