Lots of New Money, But Still-Low Inflation. What Gives?
“Just because a reckless central bank foists tons of fake money on banks, businesses, and households does not mean any of them must spend it. Fiscal-monetary recklessness itself can signal private-sector actors not to part with safe, liquid assets. Eventually, of course, they may choose to flee the money and the debt, bringing higher inflation rates and higher interest rates. Meantime, the prudent observer must never neglect to consult the demand side of money.” ~ Richard M. Salsman
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The Alphabet Soup of Recessions
“Even if the economy is reopened, will small business be able to compete with enhanced unemployment benefits? And, what about their stack of IOUs from renters who are protected from eviction for the duration, and the decriminalization of shoplifting and the right kind of rioting? And, so, our outlook may be for an O-shaped economy; that is, an economy with an empty middle.” ~ Clifford F. Thies
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How Lockdowns Devastated the Cruise Industry
“Hopefully readers will also keep in mind how quickly politicians can wreck things, and how quickly their destruction robs people and businesses of dignity. Right now, the formerly soaring cruise industry is once again ‘waiting anxiously for Washington’s go-ahead to sail again.’ Please think about that. And how wrong it is.” ~ John Tamny
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The Dramatic Brilliance Of March Madness
“There’s a reason vasectomies spike during March Madness: David going toe-to-toe with Goliath makes for great TV, and improbable runs like George Mason’s Final Four appearance in 2006, Loyola Chicago’s Final Four run in 2018, and Villanova’s ascent from #8 seed to tournament champions in 1985 are called ‘Cinderella stories’ for a reason. People love compelling stories. March Madness offers them in spades.” ~ Art Carden
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Signs of Inflation so Far
“The increases in money held by the public are a new experiment to test a widely verified proposition: substantial increases in the quantity of money held by the public are associated with substantial inflation. Inflation is quite likely to be higher in coming years than it has been in the recent past. Whether the increase is muted – an increase of one percentage point per year or so – or noticeably larger remains to be seen.” ~ Gerald P. Dwyer
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Entrepreneurship: A Fading Virtue
“It is entrepreneurs who form the foundation and operational unit of Austrian economics but sadly, their importance is slowly fading from mainstream economic analysis. Such a view of economics not only fails to acknowledge a basic tenet of the economy, but opens the door to a perception of society that merely views individuals as numbers and equations to be manipulated at will.” ~ Ethan Yang
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MMT’s Inflation Battle Will End In A Draw
“Maybe this time is different, and perhaps this is the turning point – for MMT or for inflation. More likely, the fears and the ebullient promises will converge in a middle-of-the-way third option similar to what we saw after 2008: Politicians, pundits, economists, and central bankers talk, yet nothing much happens.” ~ Joakim Book
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Bigger Can Be Better, When Governments Step Out of The Way!
“If you take a hard glance at instances of big firms being accused of acting like monopolies, you will often find something similar to the Canadian telecoms case. This has an important implication for those who propose remedies to deal with ‘big firms’ (which they take to mean monopoly). Indeed, rather than placing the onus on governments to intervene to regulate these big firms, one is forced to assign blame to governments for protecting some big firms from the threat of competition.” ~ Vincent Geloso
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The Business Economics of The Office
“Though The Office may offer a somewhat exaggerated account of entrepreneurial alertness, economic calculation, and the vagaries of corporate management, the broader strokes of its characters’ endeavors are informative. Namely, these are concepts that lie in the pages of economics and business textbooks, accompanied by graphs that make the layman’s head turn. Yet, viewed through the lens of Dunder Mifflin’s trials and tribulations, these concepts become accessible––even subconsciously.” ~ Peter C Earle & Amelia Janaskie
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The Mischief of “Pecuniary Externalities”
“Perhaps my long discourse on ‘pecuniary externalities’ strikes the reader as ponderous or even pointless. Ponderous it probably is, but pointless it is not. If the above reality were more widely understood, many fewer people would complain about foreigners using their exports as a means of ‘stealing our jobs.'” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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Hard Work Isn’t Enough. You Have to Work Hard on the Right Things.
“Markets make the costs and benefits very explicit, and while we see through a glass darkly by participating in the market process, it is better than seeing nothing at all. The market might be Plato’s cave, but the nonmarket alternative is not perfect light but perfect darkness.” ~ Art Carden
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The Right of Exit Is What Keeps Society Prosperous and Peaceful
“If we’re willing to trust something as supremely important as our language to cooperation, how much more should we be willing to trust to cooperation our education, health care, wages, and the many other things we think are so important as to require coercion?” ~ Antony Davies
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