The democratic mandate of the incoming Trump administration, along with Republican control of Congress and a confrontation of wills between the President-elect and the Federal Reserve Chairman make ending the Fed a bit less unthinkable. Jerome Powell accurately stated, in a slightly defensive tone, that it is not (currently) lawful for a President to fire a Federal Reserve Chairman. Where some see obstacles others see a challenge, and where Powell sees bullet-proof glass, I see a window of opportunity.The law can be amended, but if the administration is willing to spend some political capital to touch this sacred cow, why not go all the way? A realistic plan to end the Fed would need to be careful and pragmatic, yet decisive. There is no shutting it down overnight. That

A century ago, Argentina was one of the world’s wealthiest nations and the Argentine peso rivaled the dollar. Today, Argentina is famous for periodic hyperinflation.

Original Article: "Argentina Sleepwalks into Hyperinflation (Yet Again)"

While the Fed and the Biden administration try to assure Americans that their banks are safe and secure, the numbers tell a different story.

Original Article: "Charles Schwab and Other Big Banks May Be Secretly Insolvent"

The Argentine peso has lost half its value in one year. Both the official and parallel exchange rates with the US dollar and the Mexican peso have doubled in one year. Consumer prices have doubled in one year. The quantity of Argentine pesos has doubled in one year. All the rates at which these variables are increasing have also doubled in one year. Expecting everything to double again in half a year is now a conservative projection.
Argentina was the richest country in the world at the beginning of the twentieth century. It has now endured almost one hundred years of fiscal dominance, meaning that the central bank always accommodates whatever deficit the government decides to run. Argentina has been practicing modern monetary theory since before it was even a concept. Today more than half

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 intend to hold such assets to maturity.
As of the end of 2022, the bank with the largest amount of assets marked as “held to maturity” relative to capital was Charles Schwab. Apart from being structured as a bank, Charles Schwab is a prominent stockbroker and owns TD Ameritrade, another prominent stockbroker. Charles Schwab had over $173 billion in

Over the present year we have experienced record-breaking price inflation, a series of interest rate hikes, and an overall fall in stock prices. It is widely accepted that there is a bubble. A good way for Misesians to measure this is by comparing the price of capital (stock prices) to its replacement cost (book value). A normal ratio for the overall market should be close to one.