Category Archive: 6b) Austrian Economics

Everything seems to be lining up perfectly for individual investors with Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy making a debt ceiling deal. In fact, a sentiment poll reflects an ebullient investor class. According to an Investors Intelligence article titled "Assume the Positioning" (reprinted in Almost Daily Grant’s, June 1, 2023), “Just 23.3 percent of respondents are bearish on stocks, the lowest since January 2022, [when] the market scaled the...

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Most people agree that we are closer to nuclear war than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Some would even argue that we are closer now than we were in those fateful days, when Soviet missiles in Cuba almost triggered a nuclear war between the US and the USSR. In those days we were told that we were in a life-or-death struggle with Communism and thus could not cede a square foot of territory or the dominoes would fall one-by-one...

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There is a sea change in how society views false accusations of sexual abuse. And it’s about time. The lawsuit John C. Depp, II v. Amber Laura Heard (2022) points to this transformation. Depp and Heard sued each other for defamation with “actual malice” over public accusations of domestic violence (DV) during their marriage; Heard also sued Depp’s attorney for making false statements. Unlike an earlier case brought by Depp in the United Kingdom,...

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I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.—Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan California continues to attack businesses and entrepreneurial freedom. Leviathan has awakened, this time with Assembly Bill 257, promoting a state-controlled trade union for all restaurant workers. Current United States secretary of labor Marty Walsh has left and become head of the National...

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Since 1960, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 78 times, according to Bloomberg. The process of increasing the debt limit has become so regular that markets barely worry about it. Furthermore, as the 2011 debt ceiling crisis showed, the impact on asset prices happened mostly in emerging economies. In 2011, Turkish and Indian debt were the most negatively impacted, while Treasuries rose. Politicians believe that raising the debt ceiling is a...

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After reading a few blog entries (see the Defending the Republic series), I have wondered why people who do not seem to benefit from social justice efforts support and endorse them. Why would a male push an agenda designed to deny his rights? Why do companies embrace the environmental, social, and governance agenda when it potentially makes them less competitive through lowered standards, higher costs, and policies that prevent talent from reaching...

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The conditions have now aligned for a repeat of the major stock market crashes that have occurred since the founding of the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) in 1913. Considering their vast experience and resources, the Fed has to know that their plan to control inflation by raising interest rates rapidly and significantly since 2022, and also tightening credit this year, will likely result in another major crash. Although the Fed has issued vague...

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