Four Charts That Show Cantillon Effects
2024-02-01
Murray Rothbard called Richard Cantillon the “father of modern economics.” While that title is often given to Adam Smith, Rothbard suggested that all the good things in Smith were first discovered by Cantillon or other pre-Smithian economists and that virtually all of Smith’s original ideas were “a significant deterioration of economic thought.”
One of Cantillon’s greatest insights involved the uneven effects of monetary expansion. New money enters the economy at a particular point—the first spender of new money acquires goods from the market, and those sellers may now use the money to increase their demands for goods, and so on. The money ripples out from its origin, providing real benefits to those closest to the center. As the new money is spent, prices rise, meaning those whose incomes
Washington’s Planned Theft of Credit Card Benefits
2024-01-29
Our vacation airline tickets in September were funded by accumulated miles on our Alaska Airlines credit card. While on vacation this summer, my brother-in-law graciously hosted eight of us for dinner. He tried to downplay the generous hospitality by saying he had just gotten his “cash back” award from his credit card company. The “cash back” credit card had accumulated a tidy sum of money, paying for a very nice dinner.
At home in Brookfield, a takeout restaurant advised a 3.5 percent surcharge if paying by credit or debit card. Shopping later, our favorite farm market added a dollar to all card transactions. It is not unusual in Brookfield to see two prices for gas: one price is for cash, and the slightly higher gallon cost is for credit. These actions offset the cost of interchange