A Defense for Democracy and Free-Markets
An Icon of Human Freedom with its Author, Thomas Jefferson Flickr.com/Drew Myers It is no secret that American progressives are at the very best terribly ambivalent about democracy, and about … Read More
Tag: Economy
Concerning the state of a nation’s or the world’s economy.
The Fermenting of the West’s Discontents: Crisis of Ideology
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. The three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act 4, scene 1 Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Johann Heinrich Füssli 1783 The Western World’s political … Read More
If Hillary Clinton Were President …
Hillary Clinton speaking at the Brown & Black Presidential Forum in Des Moines, Iowa on January 11, 2016 Wikimedia Commons/Arthur Skidmore Given how the bombastic Donald is increasingly sabotaging his own … Read More
The GOP’s Better Way
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wi) taking over the House Speakership from Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) Wikimedia Commons/Office of Speaker Paul D. Ryan On a lot of issues Donald Trump has been … Read More
The U.S. Federal Government Budget
Total U.S. Federal Government Debt in millions of dollars (blue curve with scale on the left), and its share of GDP in percent (maroon curve with scale on the right). St. … Read More
The Socialism of the Scandinavian Countries
The Scandinavian Countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden Image Credit: Wikitravel/Stefan Ertmann In the previous post Are European States More Socialist Than The US?, I noted that American progressives had … Read More
The United States: An Exceptional Country?
The draft Declaration of Independence being presented to the Second Continental Congress by the five man drafting committee on June 28, 1776. The five men standing before the Chair are … Read More
Are Leftist Economies Better Than Free-Markets?
Country per capita GDP vs. WSJ/Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom for 195 nations Data courtesy of Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation and the World Bank In a comment to the … Read More
Economics Is Mostly About Human Psychology
An African market: a place where economic balances are discovered Photo Credit: Freeimages.com/Stewart Aston Last night I was musing about how I could persuasively sell the idea that an economy’s functions … Read More
Comparing the Economies of All Countries on Earth
World Map of countries by per capita GDP in 2014 Image Credit: St. Louis Federal Reserve District Bank/FRED Plus or minus a few controversial states (like Taiwan, the Holy See, and Palastine), … Read More
The Keynesian Emperors Have No New Clothes!
The Emperor has no new clothes! Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Vilhelm Pedersen (1820-1859) Given all their failures in suggesting successful economic policies around the world, one would have thought … Read More
An Indonesian Reagan
Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Government of Indonesia For a country that is widely reputed to have a lot of crony capitalism, Indonesia is pretty lucky to … Read More
Where Leftists Take Over, People Vote With Their Feet
Vietnamese boat people, 1984, rescued by the amphibious command ship USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19) Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/PH2 Phil Eggman, U.S. Navy The photo above shows an extreme example of … Read More
Economic Plans of Trump, Sanders, and Clinton Are Fantasies
Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders: A rogues gallery of economic ignorance Image Credits: Top Left to Right: Wikimedia Commons/Michael Vadon, Wikimedia Commons/Voice of America Bottom: Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore … Read More
Stock Investors’ BIGGEST Enemy: Central Banks
The Shiller CAPE: The most trustworthy index on stock valuations Image Credit: gurufocus.com The question for the day is whether or not we should invest in the stock market. This … Read More
U.S. Stock Markets and the Economy, April 2016
Candle charts of Dow 30 index on top, S&P 500 on bottom. Blue overlay curves are 50 day moving averages, Red curves are 100 day moving averages. Images courtesy of … Read More
Is Western Civilization Seeking Suicide?
Ottoman depiction of the siege of Vienna by Muslim forces in 1529. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/”Istanbul”, Hachette, Collection “Voir” (PD-Art) It is rapidly becoming obvious to a number of people that … Read More
The Long-Term Economic Stagnation the World Faces
Alvin Hansen (1887-1975): Keynesian economist who invented the Keynesian idea of secular stagnation Photo Credit: Rugusavay.com Larry Summer’s project to revive Alvin Hansen’s idea of secular stagnation is gaining in … Read More
Europe’s Challenge: Evolve or Die
The European Parliament in Strasbourg, France Wikimedia Commons/Diliff With the three recent jihadist attacks on Brussels and Paris, Europe has been given a wake-up notice … Read More
A Corporate Earnings Recession Continues
S&P 500 average earnings per share growth, year over year in % Image Credit: Bloomberg.com [Note on 3/26/2016: On Friday March 25, the U.S. Commerce Department announced corporate profits for … Read More
Compromise Between the Right and the Left
Compromise: Are our arms long enough to reach across the chasm? Image Credit: CanStockPhoto/photocreo A commenter on the post Economic Questions: Is Everyone Fooling Themselves? was concerned about the ability … Read More
Economic Questions: Is Everyone Fooling Themselves?
Velocity of the M2 money supply (blue curve) and its percent change from a year ago (maroon curve). Image Credit: St. Louis Federal Reserve District Bank/FRED In a Fortune.com article … Read More
A Conservative Anti-Poverty Program
A homeless man in the East Village, New York City. A situation we need to eliminate. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/David Shankbone In my last post, Income Inequality In the United … Read More
Income Inequality In the United States
Gini Index World Map in 2014, income inequality by country according to World Bank Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/M Tracy Hunter One of progressives’ favorite conversations is about income inequality, particularly … Read More
Globalization, Xenophobia, and Donald Trump
Views that fuel Donald Trump’s Campaign Image Credit: Flickr.com/Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com The political reactions working in favor of Donald Trump, or for that matter, Bernie Sanders have been a long time … Read More
The “Science” of Economics
A modern day view of economists. By Rembrandt – The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH., Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons The … Read More
Europe’s Monetary Experiment Not Working!
How can we get a little inflation around here?! Photo Credit: Canstockphoto.com/Bialasiewicz Do you remember how the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to try to add more zing to the Eurozone’s economy … Read More
Alternative to the Keynesians: New Classical Economics
Adam Smith (1723-1790), founder of classical economics, which has flowered into New Classical Economics Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/By Unknown – http://www.nationalgalleries.org/object/PG 1472, Public Domain At this time in history, the … Read More
The Phillips Curve in New Keynesian Economics
The original Phillips curve for the U.S. fit to 1960s data. A non-economist might justifiably be confused about why the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the the … Read More
The Political Defense of US Capitalism
Storm Clouds of Socialism (c) Can Stock Photo / leedsn This essay is a continuation of my previous … Read More