Topic: Economic History

Crisis, Economic History, Government, Regulation

Who Really Cheats the Government?

– August 16, 2022

“The greater enforcement could be regressive. Policymakers and pundits should ponder this possibility before they wrap themselves in the cloth of virtue.” ~ Vincent Geloso

Economic Education, Economic History, Government

The Strange Definition of Recession Is the Best We Have

– July 29, 2022

“The reality is that the reason many use the flawed rule is because all other alternatives seem to be worse. As such, politicians and pundits who try to downplay talks of a recession by mentioning the flawed rule may be politically, and not economically inclined.” ~ Vincent Geloso

Economic Education, Economic History, Government, Monetary Policy

Not so Modern Monetary Theory

– July 24, 2022

“If the issue of an unbacked or insufficiently-backed currency exceeds the amount needed to pay the tax, and even exceeds the amount in demand as a medium of exchange, the value of that currency will fall (or, there will be inflation).” ~ Gary M. Pecquet & Clifford F. Thies

Crisis, Economic History, Government

Liberty and the Power of the Purse

– July 19, 2022

“The colonists ripped the British Empire apart to combat what they considered political slavery, and Southerners tried to do likewise to the U.S. Republic to maintain chattel slavery. Liberty again hangs by the purse strings and by no means must it prevail.” ~ Robert E. Wright

Crisis, Economic History, Energy, Free Markets

End the Gasoline Crisis: Try Motivation by Love, Not Fear

– July 18, 2022

“It is time to unleash the market to produce more, rather than excoriate the oil producers. Try some motivation by love, President Biden, not motivation by fear.” ~ Raymond C. Niles

Central Banking, Crisis, Economic History, Monetary Policy

Strike Three for the Federal Reserve

– July 4, 2022

“No batter always gets on base but America, nay the world, has a high-quality pinch hitter that it benched a century ago: the Gold Standard. It’s not perfect but it is far better, and fairer, than the Fed.” ~ Robert E. Wright

Economic History, Financial Markets, Government, Inflation

Stocks and Bonds Hurt Alike Under Stagflation

– July 1, 2022

“When bonds and stocks decline a lot and simultaneously it suggests inflation is rising rapidly even as the economy is stagnating or contracting (or will soon do so). For most economists today, that combination is near-impossible.” ~ Richard M. Salsman

Authoritarianism, Books, Economic History

Tocqueville’s Worst Fears

– July 1, 2022

“Piketty is less concerned with promoting either political or individual freedom than he is with building a ‘state’ strong enough to push ‘to its logical conclusion ‘the movement towards ‘real equality’ as he conceives it.” ~ David Lewis Schaefer

Crisis, Economic History, Free Markets, Government

The Perpetual Tragedy of New York’s Rent Control

– June 30, 2022

“If the city keeps reducing real rents by capping increases below the inflation rate (as it is doing now), and if inflation continues for more than a few years, we will see building abandonments once again.” ~ Raymond C. Niles

Economic Education, Economic History, Free Markets

Studying Economics Instills Gratitude

– June 28, 2022

“Grateful hearts want to see the sort of prosperity they have enjoyed extended to others near and far. Fortunately, economics also offers the prosperity recipe—if only we have ears to listen.” ~ Caleb S. Fuller

Classical Liberalism, Crisis, Economic History, Free Markets

Setting the Record Straight on “Setting the Record Straight on the Libertarian South African Economist W.H. Hutt and James M. Buchanan”

– June 27, 2022

“MacLean et al. have in fact set nothing straight, and their argument, far from being ‘irrefutable,’ wrecks itself upon the rocks of at least one major citation error, selective use of documents, and willful misreadings of Hutt’s words devoid of their original context.” ~ Phillip W. Magness & Art Carden

Crisis, Economic History, Government

The Ripples of Government Intervention

– June 21, 2022

“When someone says ‘what could go wrong’ after proposing a policy intervention, the reply should be ‘a lot that we will only comprehend many years from now.’ The damaging ripples of government intervention may be very far in the future – it does not mean they do not exist.” ~ Vincent Geloso