The Fed’s Monetary Politburo Is Finally Catching Some Flack

Now that’s more like it. Echoing Donald Trump’s Monday night bull’s-eye regarding the Fed’s thoroughly political essence, Rep. Scott Garrett put more wood to Janet Yellen during yesterday’s hearing: Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., seized Trump’s mantle during Wednesday’s hearing, saying “the Fed has an unacceptable cozy relationship” with the Obama administration and Democrats. “As the saying goes, perception is reality,” Garrett told Yellen....

No, Uber doesn’t increase congestion

I'm a big of fan of Uber. As I've written elsewhere, Uber should be encouraged not over-regulated. It might even be saving lives.It's becoming increasingly clear that Uber's very noisy opponents aren't persuading anyone when they argue that Uber's a threat to public safety. As a result, they're changing tactics.Earlier this year, cabbie union the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) blamed record levels of congestion in London on Uber and...

What’s the Best Way To Store Your Batteries?

How much do you know about storing household batteries for the long term?  Until I started prepping, I did not have a clue.  Even after I started to prep, I was unsure, although it did make sense to store batteries at room temperature, not too hot and not too cold.  Still, when the topic came up while out with friends, some wise guy mentioned keeping batteries in the freezer and I was lost. Shortly after that, I check snopes.com and learned...

Trump’s Economic Plan Faces Well-Deserved Ridicule

Earlier this week, the Trump campaign released a white paper written by senior policy adviser Peter Navarro to elaborate and quantify the candidate’s economic plan.  The goal of the paper is to explain how Donald Trump’s promises to renegotiate trade agreements and raise tariffs will promote economic growth and raise revenue for the government.  The plan betrays embarrassing ignorance of how trade negotiations work and a farcically simplistic...

The Islamic Hatred of Modernity

I have for you a very interesting and unusual piece for this week’s Outside the Box. It is not that I do not regularly send things by authors who see the world differently from me, but I rarely delve into the political and geopolitical world. My friend Dr. Woody Brock is one of the most brilliant game theory specialists that I know. He studied with the most accomplished game theoreticians in academia, and he regularly applies game theory to...

You Want to Fix the Economy? Then First Fix Healthcare

What is blindingly obvious to employers but apparently invisible to the average zero-business-experience mainstream pundit is this: if you want to fix the economy, you must first fix healthcare. If you want to pinpoint a primary reason why U.S. enterprises shift jobs overseas, you have to start with skyrocketing healthcare costs. According to a report by the St. Louis Federal Reserve, real (adjusted for official inflation) wages have risen a...

Missing moods at the Boston Globe

Polls show that 58% of Americans favor the legalization of marijuana. Even Texans support it. But an initiative to legalize pot in (very liberal) Massachusetts may fail. One reason is anti-legalization editorials like the following, in the highly influential Boston Globe. When I think about the prospect of legalizing marijuana in Massachusetts, I surprise myself by sounding like my father. Cannabis tourism? THC-infused lip balm? "Budz...

$11 Billion In Missing ACA Subsidies From Mass Tax Noncompliance

Expert Commentary Complications arising from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits (PTCs) are causing millions of people to effectively break the law. People who benefit from advance premium tax credits (APTCs) must file tax returns and include a form to reconcile the advanced amount to the actual end-of-year entitled amount. The failure of ...

Happy Birthday Mises

My short tribute, focusing on the economics of war.

Epistocracy at Aeon

Uncategorized Another short piece introducing epistocracy at Aeon today. Also at the PUP blog. Of course, any epistocratic system would face abuse. It’s easy to imagine all the things that might go wrong. But that’s also true of democracy. The more interesting question is which system, warts and all, would work best. In the end, it’s a mistake to picture epistocracy as...

Mises Blog

Mises Bloghttps://mises.org/feed/rss.xml enWhich is Worse: A Busted Pipeline or a Politician with a Case of the Do-Somethings?https://mises.org/blog/which-worse-busted-pipeline-or-politician-case-do-somethings A A Home | Feed | Blog.rssWhich is Worse: A Busted Pipeline or a Politician with a Case of the Do-Somethings? 0 Views Economists have a grumbling and cynical stereotype. This might be because even the most...

The Market and the State

[Originally published in German in 1968. Published in Economic Freedom and Interventionism] For every species of animals and plants the means of subsistence are limited. Hence every living being’s vital interests are implacably opposed to those of all members of its own species. Only human beings know how to overcome this irreconcilable, nature-given conflict by embarking upon cooperation. The higher productivity of work performed under the...

Yellen Dodges Questions on Interest Rates and Political Motives

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen testified before the House Financial Services Committee on financial regulation. The Fed Chair took criticism from both sides, with Democrats and Republicans criticizing the regulatory body for doing too much and for doing too little. Among the topics was the over-reach of Dodd-Frank, breaking up “too big to fail” firms, and the recent Wells Fargo phony account scandal. However, one...

US Outcry Over Syria… Tears Followed By NATO Bombs

Submitted by Finian Cunningham via Strategic-Culture.org, The crescendo of US-led condemnations against Syria and Russia over alleged humanitarian crimes in Syria grows louder by the day. The eerie sense is that this «outcry» is being orchestrated as a prelude to a NATO-style intervention in Syria. Such a NATO maneuver would follow the template for former ...

I’m in Awe of How Fast Deutsche Bank is Falling Apart

Counterparties lose confidence, withdraw cash. Deutsche Bank, with $2 trillion in assets, amounting to 58% of Germany’s GDP, one of the most globally interwoven banks, with gross notional derivatives exposure of €46 trillion, right at the top along with JP Morgan (booked as €41 billion in derivative trading assets after netting and collateral) – this creature of risk and malfeasance, is finally starting to scare its counterparties. This is how...

Ep. 748 From the Military to Entrepreneurship: How a Listener Changed His Life

[unable to retrieve full-text content]James Newcomb, another conscientious objector I've gotten to know in the private Facebook group for the show's Supporting Listeners, discusses his post-military entrepreneurial vision, and how to embark on a new life. Show notes for Ep. 748

Thursday evening links

1. Chart of the Day I (above). Thanks to the shale gas revolution and cheap natural gas, we’re in the middle of the “great reversal” as natural gas is increasingly being substituted for coal as an energy source for electric power generation. In another important energy milestone, in a long series of energy milestones related to the shale revolution, natural gas surpassed coal this year (through July) as a fuel source to generate electricity....

The Road to Fascism in Just Two Charts

Laws of politics have been turned upside down. The Intellectuals Yet Idiots can make no sense of it. The underdog who ‘tell it how it is’ appeal to people while established reasoning does not.  Politicians used to pit people against each other and bribe key electoral groupings with the spoils of ‘democratic’ victory to maintain power; well aware that the “…[process] will [only] endure until the day [politicians] discovers that it can bribe the...

Regulation, Thy Nature is Flawed

Regulation has several inherent flaws. 1. One agency acts as legislative, judicial, and executive branch. It makes the rules, decides who is breaking them, and punishes offenders. 2. Regulation is based on the doctrine of prior restraint. Instead of retaliating by force against criminals, the government initiates the use of force against innocents–because they might commit a crime. So it criminalizes non-crimes. 3. Regulation forces businesses...

1986 — Thirty Years Later — James Buchanan and the Nobel Prize