What an Old Coin Collection Tells Us about Money from the Past

2023-11-21

Econometric model building attempts to produce a laboratory with controlled variables. By means of mathematical and statistical methods, an economist establishes functional relationships between various economic variables.
For example, personal consumer outlays are related to personal disposable income and interest rates, while fixed capital investments are explained by the past stock of capital, interest rates, and economic activity. A group of such estimated relations constitutes an econometric model.
A comparison of the goodness of fit of the dynamic simulation versus the actual data is an important criterion in assessing the reliability of a model. (In a static simulation, the model is solved using actual lagged variables. In a dynamic simulation, the solution is obtained by employing

2023-11-17

In the aftermath of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and its companion case, race-based affirmative action is, for the most part, dead. While there are legitimate criticisms of this decision from the Right, the Left has taken the near opposite approach.
Rather than simply lamenting, the Left is using this as an opportunity for taking further action against what they perceive to be racial discrimination. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) states in a tweet, “If SCOTUS was serious about their ludicrous ‘colorblindness’ claims, they would have abolished legacy admissions, aka affirmative action for the privileged. 70 percent of Harvard’s legacy applicants are white. SCOTUS didn’t touch that—which would have impacted them and their patrons.”
Beside the fact that by AOC’s own admission white

2023-11-13

​Why are we using state money instead of market money? Put another way, why can’t we select the money we want to use? Cryptocurrencies are a market alternative, but they haven’t put state money out of business yet. If they ever threaten to do so, the state can prohibit them.
Market money is sound because of two essential features. First, it represents the market’s choice of a universally accepted medium of exchange, and second, it shackles government to a great extent, liberating the people. A state that prowls foreign lands in the name of freedom and democracy and keeps its domestic population in line with free stuff and threats has no interest in a currency it can’t will into existence. For this reason, governments hate sound money.
Even worse, people hate sound money. Sound money means