Monthly Archive: May 2023

The Central bankers of the world, apparently losing confidence that they can fix the inflation they created, are turning to Plan B: blame the people. So we fight each other. Last week the chief economist of the Bank of England, Huw Pill, said the quiet part out loud, that “British households and businesses need to accept they are poorer and stop seeking pay increases and pushing prices higher.” Note inflation in the UK is currently running...

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To understand the economy, most financial experts and commentators rely upon gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP framework looks at the value of final goods and services produced during a particular time interval, usually a quarter or a year. This statistic is constructed with the view that consumption, not wealth production, drives an economy. Since consumer outlays are the largest part of the overall demand, it is assumed that consumer demand...

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A mom in the neighborhood recently made trouble. Macroeconomic trouble. Here is a way to spot such trouble, and how to help nurture the goodness in our economic way of life. A few months back her boy went door to door, confidently introducing himself, explaining his purpose, and handing us a detailed flier: “Twelve-year-old boy willing to work.” He was trying to earn money to go to sailing school. I was impressed. My wife was impressed. We told our...

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Last week the House passed legislation increasing the debt ceiling. The bill was supported by all but four Republicans. For some Republicans, this was the first time they had ever voted for a debt ceiling increase. Perhaps the reason they did so this time was because the legislation also promised to reduce federal spending by $4.5 trillion over the next decade. Most of those spending reductions are achieved by rolling back Fiscal Year spending to...

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The Austrian business cycle theory teaches us that low interest rates manipulated by the central bank lead to malinvestments, which are cleared when the central bank lets rates rise, reflecting a truer cost of capital. A real-time example is happening in the United States commercial office real estate market. Combine that with the government’s covid lockdowns, which forced employees to work from home. Now, employees never want to change out of...

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Economists are becoming more appreciative of how historical episodes shape future events. The resurgence of history as an explanatory tool has led economists to publish a series of papers collectively known as the “Deep Roots” literature. These papers cover a wide range of topics, but Africa has been a strong focus due to its unique history of underdevelopment. Some trace Africa’s fortunes and misfortunes to the character of precolonial...

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The taming of monetary policy necessary to slow price inflation has triggered a corrective trend in the valuation of financial instruments. Many big banks in the United States have substantially increased their use of an accounting technique that allows them to avoid marking certain assets at their current market value, instead using the face value in their balance sheet calculations. This accounting technique consists of announcing that they...

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