A Strange Anti-Capitalist Argument

Every defender of the market has hear this when debating a socialist, specifically when defending the aspect of personal liberty in markets. "Capitalism leaves the individual free, that is, free to starve." Or some variation of the idea that no individual is free because "they still have to produce value at the threat of death." …

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Keynesian Accounting Card Tricks Create Absurd Theories

Storms of comments on the economic collapse of the lockdown have been met with some reoccurring statements from the Keynesians and MMT believers. Nikki Haley wrote on Twitter that state budgets should have had rainy day funds ready for events like this, which seems like an obvious comment. She was then attacked for now knowing …

Exploding the “National Security” Case Against Free Trade

Protectionism might be the oldest economic fallacy that will never die. We have been refuting it for hundreds of years and will still be refuting it for hundreds more.  But protectionist arguments take many forms, going in and out of style. “We understand that tariffs make products more expensive for the consumer”, they tell us, …

Thank Government Intervention for Hospital Shortages

It has been better for Universal Healthcare advocates to ignore Certificate of Need (CON) laws to advance their position. That was before the Coronavirus Pandemic gave the regulations recognition, along with the hospital shortages they cause.  If we ask our interventionist friends, without mentioning CON, if hypothetically they would support a regulation that forces a …

Price Controls For Immigrant Farm Labor

In the mainstream news, confusing headlines say that the government is “seeking to cut farmworker wages.” Both the Wall Street Journal and NPR describe it this way. NPR says, “To Help Farmers, White House Wants To Lower Migrant Wages.” Obviously this is pretty dastardly. The federal government, which apparently sets all prices, just feels that …

An Upcoming Downturn is an “A Priori” Fact

For the man on the street the multiple stock market crashes in March were an unforeseen circumstance caused by the Coronavirus Pandemic, disrupting an otherwise strong economy. For the Austrian Economists, the reality was no surprise, and neither were the other major recessions of the 20th century. Before the Great Depression, Austrian economist Ludwig Von …

Everything The Fed Has Done Since the Coronavirus

The Federal Reserve has broken the few restraints it had before the coronavirus outbreak. It was not long ago that the Fed objective was to reduce its balance sheet from $4.5 trillion in 2017. Now within three months it is approaching $6 trillion. The original charter from the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 is as …

“Price Gouging” is Scarcity Extended to the Individual

The price gouging explanations have been back for weeks, with the usual, and correct, defenses of the market and how it allocates scarce resources during a crisis. Higher prices are a result of higher demand immediately after a crisis, with a greater disequilibrium from supply. Factors of production cannot produce more of the specific product …

The Economy Needed “Stimulus” Before the Virus Collapse

Convenient for the central planners that the Coronavirus Lockdown will pose as the one and only cause of the next recession in the Official Version of History. Like many government-engineered catastrophes, we will pretend that history began in January of 2020 and ignore the previous decade of artificial credit expansion, low interest rates, and liquidity …

A Former Central Banker vs. Actual Economic History

It’s no secret that the Wall Street Journal is filled with Federal Reserve lackeys, always craving to lick the boots of the sacred central planning agency. Especially important is the reoccurring theme of “Fed independence” where the Federal Reserve has unique permission from God to control much of the economy and maintain a banking cartel …