Category Archive: 6b) Austrian Economics

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The Last Thing We Need Right Now Is Bernie’s Proposed Tax on Financial Transactions

2020-03-30

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2020-03-30

When one imagines working on Wall Street, he envisions stock traders scrambling to place buy or sell orders, perhaps even some puts or options. Today’s powerful artificial intelligence tools allow traders to game stock market trading. In some ways, this computer-driven high-frequency trading resembles actual gaming in that it may seem as if one is simulating various trading scenarios.

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More than Half of All US COVID-19 Deaths Occur in Only Four States

2020-03-29

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2020-03-29

Covid-19 Deaths as a % of All US Deaths
As of March 24, nearly 30 percent of all the COVID-19 deaths in the United States have occurred in New York state. Of the 910 deaths reported so far in the US, 271 happened in New York. Washington State was in second place, with 13 percent of the nation's COVID-19 deaths.

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Diversification versus Risk

2020-03-28

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2020-03-28

It is widely held that financial asset prices fully reflect all available and relevant information, and that adjustments to new information is virtually instantaneous. This way of thinking which is known as the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is closely linked with the modern portfolio theory (MPT), which postulates that market participants are at least as good at price forecasting as any model that a financial market scholar can come up with,...

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Is gold still a safe haven?

2020-03-27

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2020-03-27

There have been moments in recent months when many gold owners, myself included, have asked themselves whether gold might have lost its safe haven status, at least in the western world. Was it enough for two generations, who grew up in a paper money system, to forget the history and the 5000-year-old status of gold as real money? 

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Central Bankers Are Running Out of Options

2020-03-27

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2020-03-27

Corona fears have shifted the world’s central banks into hyperdrive. Talk more, do more, lend more—and buy everything that moves. One after the other, the major central banks took to the barricades, manned the canons, fired their bazookas, and every other military metaphor you can think of.

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The European Central Bank Is Being Stretched to Its Breaking Point in Italy

2020-03-26

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2020-03-26

Investment/GDP in Italy, 2000-2019
When Mario Draghi’s tenure was approaching its end, I argued for a sterner governor for the European Central Bank (ECB); hence, I was not even slightly enthusiastic when Draghi’s successor turned out to be Christine Lagarde—a patent dove, as can be inferred from her ideological proximity to a famous Keynesian like Olivier Blanchard.

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Diseases Are Bad. Government-Forced Shutdowns Are Often Worse.

2020-03-26

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2020-03-26

However high the death rate of the COVID-19 coronavirus becomes, the governmental response to the threat will be even more dangerous. If the current blockade of economic life continues, more people will die from the countermeasures than from the virus itself. In a short time, the basic supply of everyday goods will be at risk. By interrupting the global transport and supply chains, important medicines will be missing and food supplies will be...

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In Spain You Can’t Use Your Own Back Yard. Police Make Sure of It.

2020-03-25

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2020-03-25

The last days and weeks of the coronavirus epidemic give an interesting insight into the human psyche. Elementary liberties are restricted all over the world, such as the freedom of movement or private property. Yet most people accept these restrictions without blinking, as the state declares their indispensability.

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No, Technology Shocks Aren’t Behind Recurring Business Cycles

2020-03-22

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2020-03-22

Economic fluctuations, also known as business cycles, are seen as being driven by mysterious forces that are difficult to identify. Finn Kydland and Edward C. Prescott (KP), the 2004 Nobel laureates in economics, decided to attempt to find out what these forces were.1 They hypothesized that technology shocks are a major factor behind economic fluctuations and demonstrated that a technology-induced shock can explain 70 percent of the fluctuations in...

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A crisis is a terrible thing to waste – Part I

2020-03-21

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2020-03-21

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” -Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff from 2009 to 2010. Only a couple of weeks ago, if anyone told you that your entire country would be basically shutting down, that events and public gatherings would be outlawed, that you’d be looking at empty shelves in your local supermarket and that the global...

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Aplanando la economía «por el virus»

2020-03-20

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2020-03-20

Escribo esto el 18 de marzo, después de haber visto un cambio de 180 grados en la forma de pensar sobre las enfermedades contagiosas. Anteriormente, poníamos a los enfermos en cuarentena y respetamos el derecho de los sanos a seguir con sus vidas. Ahora estamos al borde de la ley marcial. En nuestro afán por combatir el coronavirus, estamos cerrando los viajes, las reuniones públicas, los restaurantes, etc.

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Government Is No Match for the Coronavirus

2020-03-20

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2020-03-20

The coronavirus is reminding everyone that you cannot rely on government and that ultimately it is the private sector that will provide the solutions. Many nonmedical government officials and members of the media are predicting massive cases of COVID-19 and death, when in fact no one can predict the outcome.

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Financialization: Why the Financial Sector Now Rules the Global Economy

2020-03-19

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2020-03-19

To read or watch the news in today's world is to be confronted with a wide array of stories about financial organization and financial institutions. News about central banks, interest rates, and debt appear to be everywhere.

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Money Supply Growth Climbs to 37-Month High

2020-03-18

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2020-03-18

M2 and TMS/Rothbard-solerno Measure, 1998-2019
The money supply growth rate rose again in February, climbing to a 37-month high. The last time the growth rate was higher was during February of 2017, when the growth rate was 7.9 percent. During February 2020, year-over-year (YOY) growth in the money supply was at 7.49 percent. That's up from January's rate of 6.32 percent, and up from February 2019's rate of 3.20 percent.

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Helikoptergeld – nutzlos gegen die Krise

2020-03-17

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2020-03-17

Vor 11 Jahren befand sich die Welt, nach dem Platzen der Immobilienblase und der Peilte zahlreicher Banken, in einer drastischen Wirtschaftskrise. Diese entstand aufgrund zu niedriger Zinsen und zu viel billigem Geld. Gelernt haben die Notenbanker aus dieser Krise offensichtlich äußerst wenig. Trotz einer zehnjährigen Boomphase, insbesondere in Deutschland, sind die Zinsen historisch niedrig und werden weiter gesenkt.

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The Fed’s Massive Injection of “Liquidity” Also Benefits Uncle Sam

2020-03-17

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2020-03-17

There’s a lot to be said regarding the Fed’s surprise announcements—including its Sunday surprise of $700 billion in renewed QE and the complete elimination of all reserve requirements for banks—but here let me just focus on one element: the tendency for Fed officials and all the pundits to treat injections of “liquidity” as if they don’t count as much when distorting the economy.

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Modern Monetary Theory Is an Old Marxist Idea

2020-03-15

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2020-03-15

Modern monetary theory, or MMT, has been getting a lot of attention lately, often celebrated as a revolutionary breakthrough. However, there is absolutely nothing new about it. The very basis of the theory, the idea that governments can finance their expenditures themselves and that therefore deficits don’t matter, actually goes back to the Polish Marxist economist Michael Kalecki (1899–1970).

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The CDC’s Budget Is Larger Now Than Under Obama

2020-03-14

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2020-03-14

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Operating Budget, 2016-2020
This is how the budget process in Washington begins. Step one: the president submits his budget to Congress. Step two: Congress puts the president's budget in a drawer somewhere and forgets about it. Step three: Congress passes a budget it likes instead.

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Why Medicare for All Would Require Huge Tax Increases

2020-03-13

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2020-03-13

Medicare for All is listed as the top priority of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. He describes it as a single-payer system that is “free at the point of service” as there will be no premiums, deductibles, copays, or surprise bills. It will cover more services (dental, hearing, vision, long-term care, substance abuse treatment, etc.) than what the present Medicare system covers. It will also stop the “pharmaceutical industry from...

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The “Market Monetarists” and NGDP Targeting

2020-03-12

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2020-03-12

[This article is part of the Understanding Money Mechanics series, by Robert P. Murphy. The series will be published as a book in late 2020.] In addition to the Keynesian perspective (covered in chapter 14), a relatively new challenge to the Austrian framework comes from the “market monetarists” and their endorsement of a central bank policy of “level targeting” of nominal gross domestic product (sometimes abbreviated as NGDPLT1).

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