NHS CEO gets yet another boss

One has to feel sorry for Simon Stevens, the long-suffering CEO of NHS England. Every chief executive has a Chairman but few have ever lambasted their own organisations to the extent that Lord David Prior last week criticised the NHS and, by inference, current and previous Secretaries of State: “Do you know any other big organisation in the world that hives off its digital strategy into a separate organisation, that hives off its people and...

Forthcoming Anthology on Dialectical Libertarianism

Check out Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s announcement for his forthcoming anthology Dialectics of Liberty: Exploring the Context of Human Freedom (edited by Sciabarra, Roger Bissell, and Edward Younkins) here, and the abstracts of chapters here. Contributors include Jason Lee Byas, Robert Campbell, Troy Camplin, Kevin Carson, Gary Chartier, Billy Christmas, Douglas Den Uyl, Nathan Goodman, Robert Higgs, Steven Horwitz, Stephan Kinsella, Deirdre...

Bonus Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 9 of Benjamin Rogge’s October 1962 speech titled “The Case for Economic Freedom,” as this essay is reprinted in A Maverick’s Defense of Freedom, the 2010 collection of Rogge’s essays that is edited by Dwight Lee: The free market protects the integrity of the individual by providing him with a host of decentralized alternatives rather than with one centralized opportunity. Even the known communist can readily find employment in...

Monday night links – Publications – AEI

AEI Monday night links 1. Chart of the Day (above) shows another historic US energy milestone: America’s crude oil output reached 12 million bpd last week for the first time in history. In just a decade, US oil production increased a whopping140% from 5 million to 12 million bpd, arguably the most remarkable energy success story in history. Imagine how much different today’s energy situation would be without fracking and horizontal drilling,...

Change the Rules, OK — and Yes, Norms and Culture (and Character) Matter By Lowering the Costs of Enforcing the Rule Changes!

The conversation between Russ Roberts and Michael Munger concerning Crony Capitalism is full of insight and wisdom.  It is a great conversation in part because they are very comfortable with each other --- this is Munger's 36th appearance on EconTalk! --- and it is a insightful because they both have a deep appreciation for the economic way of thinking and for the history of political economy. I do think they both could stress a bit more that...

Why The Fed’s Doom-Loop Will Take The US Economy Down, Part 4

A Missed Opportunity for Dianne Feinstein

Presumably some of you have seen the video of the group of children, and an adult or two, having a conversation with Dianne Feinstein. I never thought I would say anything nice about her but I do appreciate two things. First, Senator Feinstein argued back when challenged. A lot of Democratic politicians don’t seem to have the guts to do even that. Second, I like the part (at about the 1:00 point in the short video) where the girl says “We’re...

Recession: Are We There Yet?

An old joke says economists predicted 15 of the last 10 recessions. In other words, they’re frequently wrong and often too pessimistic. I think it’s not so simple. Every recession prediction is eventually correct; some just get the timing wrong. That’s because, so long as we have a business cycle, a recession is always coming. The only question is when it will strike. There’s also some dispute about what, exactly, counts as...

“Gold Is A Global Thermometer Of Risk”

In Business and Finance, Ireland’s leading business magazine, latest CEO Q+A, speak to Stephen Flood, CEO of GoldCore, about the global economy, debt levels, and making the most of your personal strengths. Q. What are your main priorities and goals in your role? To provide a convenient, efficient and most importantly safe way of owning gold bullion for clients who want to hedge financial and economic risks. We believe that most investors are...

Utah’s Novel Approach to Medicaid Expansion

Charles Blahous writes on an effort by Utah to expand Medicaid in the state to childless adults below the poverty line. Read it at Economics21.

Why Capitalism is the Answer to Environmental Concerns About “Overpopulation”

It is difficult to place oneself in the national conversation without entering the hotly debated sphere of “sustainability,” and what needs to be done to create a “sustainable” future, characterized by the usage of resources such that future prosperity is not hindered. It would seem as though the key to ensuring the existence of sufficient ...

Powell Put Confirmed: Balance Sheet Reduction Will End This Year

After weeks of hinting, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed that the central bank will end its balance sheet reduction program this year. This just five months after insisting quantitative tightening was on “autopilot.”“We’ve worked out, I think, the framework of a plan that we hope to be able to announce soon that will light the way all the way to the end of balance sheet normalization,” Powell said during testimony before the...

This Is Setting Off My BS-Pattern Detector

This is a really smart guy; my son and I read (a lot of) his book Our Mathematical Universe. But around 14:15 when he starts asking questions, instead of saying, “Nothing,” I can think of a different one-word answer that’s far more accurate. [embedded content]I think the most obviously wrong step he takes, is to say that equations describing how matter behaves, are the same thing as matter itself. This would obviously be a bogus move...

Ep. 1352 This Left-Wing Attack Piece is the Bologna; Peter Klein and I Are the Slicer

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Home Prices in Sydney & Melbourne Spiral Down, Bust Spreads. IMF to Regulators: “Reinforce Financial Crisis Management”

Bitter irony: Government told first-time buyers 5 months before bust began to “get into the Sydney housing market”; once in, “you’re pretty well set for life.” “Nothing goes to heck in a straight line” because there is always a bounce, sooner or later – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, but it does get tested from time to time, including in Australia’s housing bust. Across the metro area of Sydney, prices of all types of homes combined,...

Regime Change is Urgently Needed… In Washington

Authored by Andre Vitchek via Off-Guardian.org, I am surprised that no one else is saying it, writing it, shouting it at each and every corner: It is not Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Iran that are in dire and crucial need of ‘regime change’. It is the United States of America, it is the entire European Union; in fact, the entire West. And the situation is urgent. The West has gone mad; it has gone so to speak, bananas; mental. And...

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...

John Dingell and the Death of Institutional Pride in Congress

John Dingell, who represented southeastern Michigan for 59 years in the House of Representatives, died on 7th February. While I disagreed with virtually all of Rep. Dingell’s policy preferences, I very much admired the man for the institutional pride he took in Congress. It’s a quality sorely lacking in contemporary lawmakers. Rep. Dingell was a master parliamentarian. He is famous in Washington D.C. for his steady accumulation of power as...

Keith Weiner – Monetary Metals 1970-01-01 00:00:00

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Fake News Is a Serious Problem

Fake news is a big problem. And as I’ve written, technology is about to make a lot worse. But censoring online content to combat fake news is equally problematic. And it doesn’t matter where on the political spectrum your opinions lie…it’s a problem for everyone. From a legal perspective, it’s clear that the government can’t force the media to filter out fake news. After all, the First Amendment reads, in part: Congress shall make no law …...

Lorem Ipsum

What is Lorem Ipsum? Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of...