How People Keep the World Economy Running
When institutions strain, behaviour adjusts. By Elias Sanchez Despite rising public debt, intensifying fiscal extraction, recurrent economic shocks, and heightened trade and policy uncertainty,…
Inflation: A Dirty Word for “Accommodation”
By George Ford Smith As a “stealth tax,” inflation requires no legislation to impose, no agency to collect, and diverts responsibility for damages onto politicians’…
Money and Power: Fiat Currency, Monetary Corruption, and the Architecture of Extraction
Justin M. Ptak Money is often described as neutral, technical, or merely instrumental—a passive medium facilitating exchange within an otherwise political society. This view…
Trump is at it again with his tariff craziness. How should Canada respond?
By Walter E. Block Before we answer the question, let us give some evidence of the accuracy of this description. He calls tariffs “the…
The Limits of Economic Foresight and the Oracle of Delphi: Why Models Warn, but Never Predict
Why Radical Uncertainty Undermines Predictive Ambitions in Economics By Elias Sanchez In antiquity, kings, generals, and heroes journeyed to the Oracle of Delphi seeking…
The CPI as Evidence of Methodological Error
By Keith Wilkinson Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) is considered the beginning of modern economics, a discipline of philosophical and political thought. From Smith to Marx,…
Quantum Adaptation and the Informal Market: A Political-Economic Analysis of Bolivia
Bolivia’s informal economy is not a problem—It is a solution to institutional failure By Elias Sanchez This week, Bolivia inaugurated a new president, Rodrigo…
Easy Money Breeds Fraud: The Cases of Tricolor and First Brands
By Artis Shepherd It is an axiom of asset bubbles that—under the bustling surface—widespread malfeasance takes place. This is especially true near the end…
How Common Has Private Currency Been?
By Lawrence H. White Recently, an investment advisor and Bitcoin proponent tweeted the claim that “[f]or most of human history” the “[s]eparation of money and state was…
No, Tariffs Did Not Cause September’s Budget Surplus
By Ryan McMaken According to the Treasury Department’s monthly report for September, the budget deficit turned positive last month, with tax receipts coming in at…