Monthly Archive: April 2023

Risk-Off Mood Dominates

2023-04-25

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2023-04-25

Overview:  Perhaps it was the extent of First Republic Bank's loss of deposits that were reported with earnings yesterday, but risk appetites dried up today. Asia Pacific equities were trounced outside Japan today. Hong Kong and mainland shares that trade there set the tone today falling 1.7%-1.9%. China's CSI 300 fell for the fifth consecutive session. Taiwan and South Korean markets fell more 1.4%-1.6%. Europe's Stoxx 600 is off almost 0.5%,...

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Ondato Rolls Out Its Know Your Business Solution in Poland

2023-04-25

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2023-04-25

London-based regtech firm Ondato has launched an expanded Know Your Business (KYB) solution to give local and international organisations operating in Poland automated tools for fully compliant business customer onboarding. The extended coverage provides complete data about Polish entities, including the latest sanctions lists. This enables online banks, Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs), credit institutions, cryptocurrency marketplaces,...

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Yen: Short Overview

2023-04-24

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2023-04-24

The yen is off about 1% this month to bring the year-to-date decline to about 2.4%. It fell by 12.2% in 2022 and 10.3% in 2021. The yen rallied against the dollar for the five preceding years. Over that five-year period the dollar fell from around JPY124 to JPY99, but it was all done in H1 16, and after a rally at the end of 2016 and very early 2017 (to about JPY118.65), the dollar ground down around JPY101. This year’s dollar low was set in...

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Role Reversal: The Collapse of the Dollar-Enforced Empire

2023-04-24

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2023-04-24

A generation ago, the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR collapsed. Today, US monetary authorities are bringing down our own country. Original Article: "Role Reversal: The Collapse of the Dollar-Enforced Empire" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Time Preference and Success: Is There Any Link?

2023-04-24

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2023-04-24

Every human acts purposefully using scarce means to attain ends. From this action axiom, we can deduce further human behavior and its effects. One such behavior is time preference. Time preference is the idea that people value present ends above future ends. Since we must choose between various ends at any given time, we must have a preference to achieve the chosen end sooner rather than later. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have acted at all. High Time...

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Peak EV: Electric Vehicles Will Fade as Their True Costs Become Clear

2023-04-24

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2023-04-24

The government wants to make gas cars a lot more expensive. But electric vehicles are so expensive in the longer term that gas cars still look like a better deal. Original Article: "Peak EV: Electric Vehicles Will Fade as Their True Costs Become Clear" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Are Libertarians Abandoning Free Trade?

2023-04-24

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2023-04-24

Murray N. Rothbard wrote in the February 1971 issue of the Libertarian Forum that “libertarians, if they have any personal philosophy beyond freedom from coercion, are supposed to be at the very least individualists.” Indeed, libertarianism holds high the rights and responsibilities of the sovereign individual: the right to self and to justly acquired property and thus the right not to be coerced or arbitrarily restricted and the responsibility for...

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The Dollar Begins New Week mostly Softer

2023-04-24

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2023-04-24

Overview:  The dollar is mostly lower, led by the Swiss franc and euro. However, despite softer US rates and a victory for the LDP in local Japanese elections, the yen is trading with a softer bias. Japanese stocks recovered from the pre-weekend profit-taking seen after the Nikkei make new highs for the year. Most other large bourses in the region except Taiwan and India also moved lower. Note that China's CSI 300 fell for the fourth consecutive...

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Who Are the Wealth Destroyers, Politicians or Billionaires?

2023-04-23

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2023-04-23

Politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are demanding that successful entrepreneurs be taxed into oblivion. The real parasites are the politicians who destroy wealth instead of creating it. Original Article: "Who Are the Wealth Destroyers, Politicians or Billionaires?" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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The RESTRICT Act Launches a New War on Free Speech

2023-04-22

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2023-04-22

The bipartisan RESTRICT Act—marketed as a "Tik Tok ban"—is properly named because it will restrict freedom, empower the state, and expand government surveillance.  Original Article: "The RESTRICT Act Launches a New War on Free Speech" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Marxists Have a Plan for Housing: Make Sure There Is Less Available

2023-04-22

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2023-04-22

As governments create a housing crisis, Marxists call for policies that will make the crisis worse. Original Article: "Marxists Have a Plan for Housing: Make Sure There Is Less Available" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Eye on Apple

2023-04-22

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2023-04-22

Mark looks at the price of Apple stock—one of the best performing stocks over the last quarter century, and one of the largest holdings in stock indexes, mutual funds, and Berkshire Hathaway portfolio. Market watchers have kept a keen eye on Apple as it heads for a new all-time high; but, Mark is concerned that a downturn would have a huge ripple effect on the overall market—possibly equivalent to a tsunami.  Be sure to follow Minor Issues...

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Ueda Chairs First BOJ Meeting, and US and EMU Provide First Estimate of Q1 GDP: The Week Ahead

2023-04-22

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2023-04-22

As April draws to a close, the systemic stress in the banking sector continues to subside, and the market is turning its attention to likely rate hikes by Federal Reserve and European Central Bank in early May. Although, as in March, the market sees the May hike to 5.25% to be the last Fed hike. Before the bank stress, the swap market had been leaning to a 5.75% terminal rate. It is still early to fully appreciate the magnitude and duration of the...

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The Ruling Classes Are Inflation Deniers and the Ship of Fools Sails On

2023-04-22

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2023-04-22

Continued inflation inevitably leads to catastrophe. —Ludwig von Mises Consumers’ behaviors cause the consumer price index (CPI) broad heading of food to understate the real or wallet level of inflation. It is much worse than the top line statistic—it is a serious offense to the poor and fixed-income citizens. The CPI measures nominal dollar changes based on month over month and year over year for 299 items. The year ending December 2021 posted an...

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How the Fed Rules and Inflates

2023-04-22

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2023-04-22

[From chapter 23 of The Case Against the Fed.] Having examined the nature of fractional reserve and of central banking, and having seen how the questionable blessings of Central Banking were fastened upon America, it is time to see precisely how the Fed, as presently constituted, carries out its systemic inflation and its control of the American monetary system. Pursuant to its essence as a post-Peel Act Central Bank, the Federal Reserve enjoys a...

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Will AI Steal Our Jobs (or End Us)?

2023-04-22

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2023-04-22

Professor Per Bylund joins Bob to debunk the worries over AI and to question whether the latest version of chatbots should even be called "intelligent." Per on Robots Taking your Jobs: Mises.org/HAP392a [embedded content]

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Real Wages Fall for Two Years Straight as “Transitory” Inflation Turns Stubborn

2023-04-21

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2023-04-21

The federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released new price inflation data last week, and according to the report, price inflation during the month decelerated slightly, coming in at the lowest year-over-year increase in twenty-three months. According to the BLS, Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rose 5.0 percent year over year in March before seasonal adjustment. That’s down from February’s year-over-year increase of 6.0...

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Prevent Future Losses Like East Palestine by Reducing Regulation and Empowering Torts

2023-04-21

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2023-04-21

On February 3, 2023, on Norfolk Southern Railway’s general merchandise freight train 32N, a suspect bearing on the twenty-third car measured at 38°F above ambient, then 103°F above ambient, then 253°F above ambient. In East Palestine, Ohio, eleven tank cars derailed and hazardous materials ignited. First responders mitigated the fire, but afterward the temperature was still rising in one tank car that carried vinyl chloride liquid. Responders...

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Biden’s Wealth Tax Is a Trojan Horse Requiring Multiple Manipulations

2023-04-21

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2023-04-21

President Biden pushes a wealth tax as a measure of "fairness." Not only is it unconstitutional, but it's also bad for the economy. Original Article: "Biden's Wealth Tax Is a Trojan Horse Requiring Multiple Manipulations" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Lincoln’s Main Target Was “Anarchy” and Secession, Not Slavery

2023-04-21

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2023-04-21

In a recent column, I discussed an argument about secession made by Abraham Lincoln and sympathetically expounded by Michael P. Zuckert in his important book A Nation So Conceived. Lincoln maintained that a nation once formed could not allow secession because doing so would open it to unlimited fissiparous tendencies, culminating in anarchy. This argument did not address the problem of slavery, surely relevant to the concrete circumstances of the...

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