Category Archive: 6b) Austrian Economics

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Exports: Currency Devaluation Won’t Grow the Economy

2019-12-04

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2019-12-04

Industrial Production, 2000-2019
A visible weakness in economic activity in major world economies raises concern among various commentators that world economies have difficulties recovering despite very aggressive loose monetary policies. The yearly growth rate of US industrial production stood at minus 1.1 % in October, against minus 0.1% in September, and 4.1% in October last year.

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Politicians Want Thanksgiving To Be Political. Ignore Them.

2019-12-01

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2019-12-01

Often, government-created holidays begin with a good premise — i.e., Independence Day, Armistice Day — and get worse from there. On Independence Day, instead of celebrating armed rebellion and secession, we now sing the praises of the government. Similarly, Armistice Day — a day designed to commemorate the end of a war — became Veterans Day, a day designed to honor government employees.

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The Hidden Link Between Fiat Money and the Increasing Appeal of Socialism

2019-11-29

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2019-11-29

What causes the seemingly unfounded confidence in socialism we encounter more and more in the news media and among political activists? In the Extinction Rebellion movement, for example, activists are quite certain they have learned that there is an alternative to markets as the means to economic prosperity. It's a means that does not involve meeting the legitimate needs of one's fellow men in the marketplace.

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Capital Accumulation, Not Government, Is the Key To Technological Innovation

2019-11-28

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2019-11-28

According to Mariana Mazzucato, the RM Phillips Professor in the Economics of Innovation at the University of Sussex, government is an important factor in the promotion of innovation and thus economic growth. In particular, she challenges the popular view that innovation happens in the private sector, with governments playing a limited role. Many commentators regard her as a revolutionary thinker that challenges the accepted dogma regarding the...

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The Evolution Of The Bank Run

2019-11-27

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2019-11-27

There are numerous and wide-ranging reasons why someone may choose to invest in physical precious metals. A deep understanding of monetary history provides plenty of solid arguments, and so do the mounting geopolitical risks, the spiking probability of a recession and the long-term goal of many conservative investors to safeguard their financial self-determination.

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Money-Supply Growth Accelerates to 28-Month High

2019-11-25

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2019-11-25

M2 and TMS/Rothbard-Solerno Measure, 1998-2019
The money supply growth rate rose in October, climbing to a twenty-eight-month high. The last time the growth rate was higher was during July of 2017, when the growth rate was 5.07 percent. During October 2019, year-over-year growth in the money supply was at 4.95 percent. That's up from September's rate of 3.10 percent, and was up from October 2018's rate of 3.49 percent.

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There Is No End to History, No Perfect Existence

2019-11-24

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2019-11-24

All doctrines that have sought to discover in the course of human history some definite trend in the sequence of changes have disagreed, in reference to the past, with the historically established facts and where they tried to predict the future have been spectacularly proved wrong by later events.

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The Deep State: The Headless Fourth Branch of Government

2019-11-22

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2019-11-22

School children learn that there are three branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial. In actual practice, however, there are four branches of government. The fourth is what for decades now has been called a "headless fourth branch of government," the administrative state.

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Freedom Means a Right to Discriminate

2019-11-22

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2019-11-22

Should employers have the right to discriminate in hiring on the basis of obesity? The Washington State Supreme Court recently ruled that “it is illegal for employers in Washington to refuse to hire qualified potential employees because the employer perceives them to be obese.”

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Does Economic Theory Work in Business?

2019-11-21

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2019-11-21

Marketing guru and fund investor Hunter Hastings joins the Human Action podcast for a look at Economics for Entrepreneurs, a new platform which uses Austrian theory to teach actionable entrepreneurship. Can business acumen be taught, or is it innate? Hunter and Jeff examine consumer sovereignty, value creation, and the theory of the firm, all from a unique Austrian perspective.

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Negativzinsen von mindestens minus 4 Prozent werden kommen

2019-11-20

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2019-11-20

Jetzt ist es soweit. Die Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Fürstenfeldbruck erhebt als erste Bank in Deutschland Strafzinsen in Höhe von 0,5 Prozent auf das Guthaben von Tagesgeldkonten. Und das bereits ab 0,01 Euro. Dies ist erst der Anfang. In Zukunft werden uns Strafzinsen von minus vier bis minus fünf Prozent blühen, wenn wir weiterhin an dem zum Scheitern verurteilten Währungsexperiment Euro festhalten.

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Don’t Want a Liquidity Trap? More Saving Is the Answer

2019-11-20

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2019-11-20

With interest rates in many countries close to zero or even negative, some commentators are of the view that monetary policy of the central banks are likely to become less effective in navigating the economy. In fact it is held that we have most likely reached a situation that the economy is approaching a liquidity trap. But what does this mean?

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Globalist-Endorsed War on Cash May Be China’s Next Terrifying Weapon

2019-11-18

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2019-11-18

Recent protests in Hong Kong, along with the resulting fall out from international corporations questioned for their relationships with mainland China, has placed a renewed focus on the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party. This has led to several articles identifying ways in which Western countries have learned from the CCP, including Europe's growing embrace of web censorship and growing interest in the social credit system rolled out...

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Yes, Taxation Is Theft

2019-11-17

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2019-11-17

Libertarians think that taxation is theft. The government takes away part of your income and property by force. Your payments aren’t voluntary. If you think they are, try to withhold payment and see what happens. An influential book by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, The Myth of Ownership, tries to show that this view of taxation is wrong. Many people, they say, foolishly resent taxes.

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After Years of Decline, Competition in Banking Finally Grows Again

2019-11-17

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2019-11-17

Recent Spike in FDIC Approvals, 2009-2019
US Banks are seeing a larger number of new entrants into the industry. Chime, a mobile-only bank, has opened two million online checking accounts and is adding more customers each month than Wells Fargo or Citibank. Firms from outside traditional consumer banking including Square, Goldman Sachs (Marcus), and Robinhood are entering the industry as well.

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Budget Deficits, not “Neoliberalism,” Are To Blame for Argentina’s Crisis

2019-11-16

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2019-11-16

Argentinians are known for for slinging clever insults. Spaniards, for example, love Argentine "puteadas" so much that they created a website called “Curse like an Argentinian.” Now in the world of bad words, one stands out that, when received, mortally wounds the rival in the argument. It's hard to recover after such an attack. Curiously, this insult can be written without violating the rules of decorum.

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Why Friedman Is Wrong on the Business Cycle

2019-11-15

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2019-11-15

According to an article in Bloomberg on November 5, 2019, Milton Friedman’s business cycle theory seems to be vindicated. According to Milton Friedman, strong recoveries are just natural after particularly deep recessions. Like a guitar string, the harder the string is plucked down, the faster it should come back up.

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The Feds Spend More on National-Debt Interest Than You Think

2019-11-12

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2019-11-12

Debt Held
Recently, the Treasury Department reported a 26% increase in the federal budget deficit with a 2019 deficit of $984 billion. The reported data on the budget can be misleading. You might think that a budget deficit is the amount of spending that exceeds budget revenue, in other words, the amount of borrowing needed to make up for this shortfall. However, in the world of Washington D.C., not all spending is counted as spending and it’s possible for...

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Riding the Type 3 Mega Market Melt Up Train

2019-11-11

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2019-11-11

Beta-driven Fantasy. The decade long bull market run, aside from making everyone ridiculously rich, has opened up a new array of competencies. The proliferation of ETFs, for instance, has precipitated a heyday for the ETF Analyst. So, too, blind faith in data has prompted the rise of Psychic Quants… who see the future by modeling the past.

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Why Government Should not Fight Deflation

2019-11-11

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2019-11-11

For most experts, deflation is considered bad news since it generates expectations of a decline in prices. As a result, they believe, consumers are likely to postpone their buying of goods at present since they expect to buy these goods at lower prices in the future.

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