Connecticut’s Housing Shortage Is Rooted in Government Policies
2024-04-03
Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito
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America’s Fiscal Collapse Accelerates
2024-04-02
In case you thought anybody in Washington was driving this thing, they are not. It’s official: the Department of Treasury is now issuing debt at pandemic levels. It’s worth noting the pandemic record was double the previous record, which had stood for 231 years.In raw numbers, the latest numbers for Q4 2023 show Treasury issued $7 trillion in new debt. For the entire year, it came to $23 trillion.This has bloated the Treasury market to $27 trillion — up 60% since the pandemic. In other words, one-third of Treasuries have fresh ink on them. And it’s up roughly sixfold since the 2008 crisis.Meaning if we hit another crash, it could be a lot bigger.Sending US Economy to DefaultsAt this point, federal debt is rising by $1 trillion every 90 days, and US government spending as a percent of GDP
Bastiat versus MMT
2024-01-20
Proponents of modern monetary theory (MMT) are back in action after a quiet spell during the embarrassing (for them) record price inflation of 2021–23. They are here to tell us that the mountain of government spending and debt is nothing to worry about; the government’s red ink is the private sector’s black ink, they say. Private sector growth emanates from public sector deficits, and since the US government has a gigantic money printer, there’s no reason to ever fear a default or debt crisis.
Frédéric Bastiat, the great proto-Austrian French economist, provided an excellent framework for us to evaluate this claim about the consequences of government spending.
In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of