March 22nd is World Water Day

The UN designates March 22nd as World Water Day, to draw attention to the world supplies and uses of fresh water. It supports the management of fresh water supplies in a sustainable way, covering such issues as its scarcity, pollution, and access to it.The UN will doubtless use the day to pass resolutions asserting everyone's 'right' to clean, fresh water, and demanding access to it for women, minorities, children and disabled people. It will...

Bonus Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 236 of Jason Kuznicki’s review of What Is Classical Liberal History? (a 2017 volume edited by Michael J. Douma and Phillip W. Magness) (original emphases): [H]istorians should approach capitalism not as a system of exploitation, which it clearly is not, but as a system of access. In the bad old days, only a tiny few had any access at all to large accumulations of capital or to the benefits that such accumulations could produce....

Venezuela Is Real Socialism or Real Fascism

“It’s corruption, not socialism, that brought down Venezuela,” claims an article in PSMAG (March 14, 2019, by Thor Benson). More worrisome is that some economists—but probably just a small number of them—seem to agree, or have been tricked to agree, ignoring a structural component of economics. It is not false but misleading to write: Corruption, not socialism, is the malignant tumor on democracy worldwide—in Venezuela, yes, but also here at...

No Free Lunch: Valuation Determines Return

Last week, I described the enormous challenges retirees face. One reason for that, aside from insufficient savings, is that markets haven’t delivered the returns many experts said we could plan on. Back in the late 1990s, we were told that the long-term average return (~10%) was a reasonable long-term assumption—even if the market cooled down from the tech boom. Instead, the S&P 500 index gained about 3% annually since 1999 with...

Which Nations Will Crumble and Which Few Will Prosper in the Next 25 Years?

What will separate the many nations that will crumble in the next 25 years and those few that will survive and even prosper while the status quo dissolves around them? As I explain in my recent book Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic, the factors that will matter are not necessarily cultural or financial; being hard-working and wealthy won’t be enough to save nations from coming apart at the seams....

Using Networks to Govern Network Problems

Today, botnets and the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that can accompany them, are considered among “the most severe cybersecurity threats.” Botnets have caused extensive economic harm to businesses, banks, hospitals, and government agencies around the world. Furthermore, botnets are used to spread political propaganda aimed at distorting democratic elections. In fact, U.S. government officials concluded that the Russian...

Groundwork support by instructor with website online classes StudyDaddy

Supporting College students Each and every University Night time How To Write a solid Essay? Begin with the go and beginning up to the conclusion. That’s the straightforward solution to the query, “How can one compose a robust essay? ” But we can easily provide the procedure much more details. First, and foremost, it is important to completely understand the question and/or issue about which the essay will be written. So, read the question or...

Peter Schiff: The Fed Is Not Getting It Right; It’s Proving How Much It Got Wrong

There’s that word again — patient.Jerome Powell once again emphasized patience during the most recent FOMC meeting. The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged and took any hikes for 2019 off the table. It went a step further and projected just one rate hike in 2020.During his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff said most people expected a dovish Fed, “But I don’t think they were expecting the Fed to be this dovish.”[embedded content]“In...

Potpourri

==> My IER post discussing my Fraser Institute study on the Alberta carbon tax. ==> I was naughty again. ==> I talked about MMT from a socialist perspective, with another guy who was also neither MMT nor socialist. ==> James Galbraith gets saucy on MMT. ==> Does anyone know about WhenHub? I’m looking for an alternative to Patreon. (Right now I’m using PayPal.) ==> Gilbert Berdine (a cardiologist here at Texas...

Ep. 1366 The Democrats and Their Court-Packing Plan

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Finance & Insurance Hit it Out of the Ballpark, No Slowdown in the Huge Services Sector

There cannot be a recession without a pullback in services.  Revenues in the major private-sector services categories rose 6.3% in Q4 2018, compared to the same quarter a year earlier, to $4.01 trillion, not seasonally adjusted, breaching for the first time the $4 trillion mark, according to the Commerce Department’s detailed Quarterly Selected Services Estimates released this morning. For the year 2018, these selected services rose 6.0% to...

Global Markets Slide, Yields Collapse As European Recession Deepens

After yesterday's furious rebound in the S&P, which almost appeared staged to confirm the Fed hasn't lost control after its shocking doubling down on dovishness which resulted in a bizarre drop in stocks in the last 30 minutes of trading on Wednesday, the rally once again fizzled overnight, dragged lower by European stocks with U.S. equity futures following, while the euro tumbled and 10-year German bunds slumped into negative for the...

Necessity is the Mother of Invention – Retirees Desperate Reach for Yield

Ben Bernanke’s creativity inspired a generation of economists and central bankers. QE, ZIRP and NIRP established a new class of economics that is mathematically sound but practically disastrous. Billions of dollars were transferred from savers to investors to boost the economy, but the wizards of quant forgot that something has to give. In this case, it was the formation of a pension crisis that threatens the golden years of millions of...

An Introduction to the Work of the Ostroms

When I took my current gig as libertarianism.org‘s economics editor, one of the first pieces I wanted to commission was one explaining the contributions of the Ostroms and why they matter for modern libertarianism. So many of us academic types talk about them, but I wondered whether outside of our circles, the reasons were understood by non-academic libertarians. Jayme Lemke has written a beautiful piece that does exactly what I wanted,...

A War on Crime or on Business?

Since the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) came into force in 1970, banks and other financial institutions have been subject to extensive reporting requirements on the transactions they perform on customers’ behalf. In subsequent years, notably after 9/11 with passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, Congress has expanded the range of firms subject to these rules and the information that they must collect. In the nearly half-century since the BSA’s passage,...

What is Needed Now — A Civil, Subtle and Nuanced Discussion of Minimum Wage That is Evidence Based By Guided By Price Theory

Russ Roberts has a highly recommended discussion with Jacob Vigdor on the Seattle Minimum Wage and its consequences.  I am always amazed at how Russ consistently raises the level of discourse through EconTalk. Of course, to folks familiar with the nuances of price theory the multiple margins of adjustment has been a theme for decades.  See this earlier discussion by Walter Wessels, or Douglas Glen Whitmann. And, of course, Deirdre McCloskey...

Why The Impending China Trade Deal Will Blow Sky-High, Part 2

Keynes Was a Vicious Bastard, Report 17 Mar

My goal is to make you mad. Not at me (though I expect to ruffle a few feathers with this one). At the evil being wrought in the name of fighting inflation and maximizing employment. And at the aggressive indifference to this evil, exhibited by the capitalists, the gold bugs, and the otherwise-free-marketers. So, today I am going to do something I have never done. I am going to rant! I am even going to use vulgar language (which is totally...

Elon’s Game

Elon is in the news again – but not for the right reason. The SEC is angry with him over his Tweets – which ought to anger Tesla shareholders even more (not because of the SEC’s investigating Elon but because of the effect of Elon’s Tweets on the value of their stock). But why isn’t anyone – including Uncle – angry with Elon over his extremely misleading – arguably fraudulent – advertising? Not about the real-world range of his electric cars –...