Recent posts

Market Pushes the Yen Lower, Helped by a Broadly Firmer Greenback

2024-05-07

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2024-05-07

Overview: The dollar is firmer against all the G10 currencies today. The market is somewhat less fearful of intervention and the yen is extending yesterday's losses. It is rivaling the Australian dollar for the weakest of the major currencies after the Reserve Bank of Australia left rates on hold and played down speculation of possibility of a rate hike. Both currencies are off around 0.4% in late European morning turnover. Disappointing German...

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Get Ready for Weaker Growth and Higher Inflation. The Consensus Was Wrong.

2024-05-06

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2024-05-06

The weak GDP figure for the first quarter came with a double negative: poor consumer spending and exports, plus a rise in core inflation. The US administration’s enormous fiscal stimulus underscores the importance of considering the weaker-than-expected data.A deceleration in consumer spending, a decline in the personal savings ratio to 3.6%, and poor exports added to a set of figures for investment that were also negative when we looked at the...

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It’s the PPI Once More!

2024-05-06

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2024-05-06

In early September 2023 we reported on the Producer Price Index, the PPI. This price statistic takes a back seat to the Consumer Price Index in media reporting and the policy-setting agenda. Back then we explained what it was and what it was telling us about the economy.The timing of that episode reflected our concern that the sharp drop in the PPI to that point in time might not be a sign of things to come. The PPI had been dropping since...

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The Fallacy of “Racism Equals Power Plus Prejudice”

2024-05-06

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2024-05-06

A position that has gained popularity on the Left in recent decades is a push to redefine racism to prevent the term from encompassing racism against whites. According to this position, “racism equals power plus prejudice.” And while whites can experience racial prejudice, there exists a prowhite and anti-non-white bias in western institutions, which is what is meant by the term “power.” Accordingly, it is argued that the term “racism” should be...

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Yen Slips, Yuan Jumps, Dollar is Mostly Softer

2024-05-06

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2024-05-06

Overview: The dollar is mostly a little softer today in thin market conditions, with Tokyo, Seoul, and London closed for holidays. The Japanese yen is the weakest G10 currency, losing about 0.5% and slipping through last Friday's lows. At first, after Fed Chair Powell did not endorse rate hike speculation, the market thought he was dovish. But after the softer than expected jobs data and weakness in the ISM services, the market shifted from...

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Killing the Golden Goose: Millennials Earn Less Than Their Parents Did

2024-05-06

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2024-05-06

For the first time in our nation’s history, 30 year olds are doing worse than their parents.In other words, we killed the golden goose.Last week, Professor Scott Galloway went on an epic rant on MSNBC laying out for his well-heeled hosts exactly what young people are going through right now.Rattling off the numbers, for Americans born in 1951 — that’s baby boomers — fully 80% were earning more than their parents. By Gen X that was down to 60%. For...

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There Is No Prosperity without Private Property

2024-05-06

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2024-05-06

Private property rights are crucial to economic prosperity. Without them, it becomes impossible to set up a system of free markets that allows for rational economic calculation. Despite this, property rights are under attack in today’s world by progressives seeking to build a more “just” society through equity.When property is originally appropriated, it belongs to its owner. The owner may use, transform, sell, or even not use his property at all,...

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Why the West Is Giving Up on Individual Rights

2024-05-05

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2024-05-05

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Does Libertarianism Reject Communities? Libertarianism Actually Strengthens Them

2024-05-05

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2024-05-05

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Low Time Preference Leads to Civilization

2024-05-05

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2024-05-05

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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The FBI and CIA Are Enemies of the American People

2024-05-05

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2024-05-05

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Javier Milei vs. the Status Quo

2024-05-05

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2024-05-05

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Privatize Driver’s Licenses

2024-05-05

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2024-05-05

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Conservatives Are Wrong on Economics. Here’s How to Fix the Problem.

2024-05-05

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2024-05-05

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Cowardice, Not Courage, Led House Republicans to Side with the Democrats

2024-05-05

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2024-05-05

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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The Homo Economicus Myth

2024-05-04

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2024-05-04

Among the larger albatrosses burdening the economics profession is the idea of Homo economicus. To this day, most economics undergraduates hear about it in the context of neoclassical economics. Homo economicus, we are told, is the ideal economic man who always seeks to maximize profits and minimize costs. He only acts “rationally,” and rationalism is defined as, well, always seeking to maximize profits and minimize costs. Even worse, “profit” is...

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How State-Sponsored Universities Distort Campus Activism

2024-05-04

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2024-05-04

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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May 2024 Monthly

2024-05-04

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2024-05-04

The resilience of the US economy and stickiness of price pressures spurred a reassessment of the trajectory of Fed policy. This sparked a sharp rise in US interest rates and extended the dollar’s advance. The somewhat disappointing April jobs report and a softer CPI report in the middle of May could signal that the interest rate adjustment is over. Federal Reserve Chair Powell played down the likelihood of the need to lift rates again, and as it...

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Consumer Confidence

2024-05-04

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2024-05-04

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Public Schools and the State’s Omnipotent Bayonet

2024-05-04

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2024-05-04

From everything I read you would think we were incapable of solving social problems.In truth, we find matters only getting worse because the proposed solutions almost always involve the culprit—the state—taking more control over our lives.The state is a box we desperately need to think outside of if we’re ever going to establish civil relations among people. We would do well to remember that the state is absolutely not in the business of making our...

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State Coercion and the Injustice of Apartheid

2024-05-04

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2024-05-04

Many libertarians hold the view that state coercion is wrong, regardless of the ends to which that coercion is deployed. It is wrong for the state to force people apart in an apartheid system, and it is also wrong for the state to force people to engage in “inclusivity” under systems of equity and diversity which force people into contractual relations against their will for example in the context of employment or housing. This is what Lew Rockwell...

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How Does the Federal Reserve Fit into Our Constitutional Order?

2024-05-03

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2024-05-03

This article is adapted from a lecture delivered to the Federalist Society: The Federal Reserve is a fundamental problem for the Constitutional order of the American Republic. How can it be that it considered itself able to unilaterally impose permanent inflation on the country, without legislative debate or approval?The shifting theories believed by central banks are among the most important of macro-economic factors. For example, William...

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The TikTok Ban Is the Next Patriot Act

2024-05-03

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2024-05-03

HR 7521, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, is a recent development in American politics. TikTok has been in the news for the past few years, after the public became aware of its connections to China. The popular social media mobile app is currently owned by ByteDance Ltd, a Chinese company. China and the United States currently have a rocky relationship, leading to fears that the Chinese government...

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A “New” Book of Essays by William Graham Sumner

2024-05-03

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2024-05-03

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Robert Kagan Goes on a Tear

2024-05-03

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2024-05-03

Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart—Againby Robert KaganAlfred A. Knopf, 2024; 243 pp.Robert Kagan, a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, has acquired over several decades a well-deserved reputation as a defender of war. Like Woodrow Wilson, he believes the world must be made safe for democracy. He strongly supported George W. Bush’s war against Iraq, and though the war is widely regarded as a failure, Kagan disagrees....

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Dollar is Softer Ahead of the Employment Report

2024-05-03

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2024-05-03

Overview: The greenback is trading with a softer bias ahead of the US jobs report. Solid, even if not spectacular job growth, is expected. However, recent survey data warns of the downside risks. Moreover, counter-intuitively, the dollar has not often rallied this year into the employment data, but frequently has in response. The dollar is softer against the G10 currencies. The Norwegian krone is the strongest, up about 0.6% after the central bank...

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MMT and Boiling Frogs

2024-05-03

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2024-05-03

“Why do we borrow our own currency in the first place?”Stephanie Kelton posed this question in her new documentary, Finding the Money, and a clip of Jared Berstein’s fumbled response to the question has gone viral on social media. Bernstein is the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers to Biden, and so we would expect that he would have an articulate answer to Kelton’s question, but he did not.Instead of trying to parse his response or explain...

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Full-Time Jobs Fall Again as Total Employment Flatlines in April

2024-05-03

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2024-05-03

According to a new report from the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics this week, the US economy added 175,000 jobs for the month of April while the unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.9%. The new reported job growth was considered a “miss” in that it came in below expectations, and for the first time in months, the media did not declare the jobs report to be “a blowout” or “strong.” Instead, the official narrative seemed to be that...

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Texas Governor Abbott Doesn’t Understand the First Amendment

2024-05-03

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2024-05-03

On the 27th of March, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order which had the purpose of curbing speech deemed as “anti-semitic” on all state-run universities. Unfortunately, speech protection on public universities has been shaky in the past with universities attempting to restrict speech many times with varying levels of success. Supreme Court decision Healey v James 1972 states that “Among the rights protected by the First Amendment...

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What Can Carl Menger Teach Us about Falafel Sandwiches?

2024-05-03

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2024-05-03

Earlier this year, I gave a short course on Carl Menger’s Principles of Economics for scientists and engineers at my institute. The course was brief, and I focused only on ideas that were relevant for researchers in engineering and the natural sciences. One of the ideas we talked about was supply and demand, in order to link it to the supply and demand of research-related things: the labor of researchers, research articles on specific topics, and...

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