Economics

June 17, 2021

The moral deficit of inflationary spending

Spending! Relief! Infrastructure Investment! Build Back Better! These are words and sayings that have been bandied about throughout the past year. Anyone with a basic interest in the news cycle is bound to have heard that the federal government has proposed plans to spend trillions of dollars. Continue Reading...

June 16, 2021

Crypto and Blockchain: A flash in the pan or something more?

Ever since the first Bitcoin was mined in January of 2009, we’ve seen an ever-growing interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain — the technology upon which Bitcoin is based. What are we to make of it all? Continue Reading...

June 05, 2021

America is crossing economic Rubicon of government management

If anyone had any lingering doubts about where American economic policy is heading over the next four years, those should have been removed by President Joe Biden’s proposed $6 trillion budget for 2022. Continue Reading...

May 26, 2021

Why capitalism is worth conserving

Amid the waves of populism and protectionism sweeping across the American Right, capitalism has become a favorite target of many prominent conservatives, blamed for the decline of religion, the demise of the family, and the erosion of civil society. Continue Reading...

May 12, 2021

Examining the moral basis of Pope Francis’ pleas for financial regulation – and the morality of ‘speculation’

In his Prayer Intentions for May 2021, Pope Francis is asking that Catholics pray for strict regulation of financial markets to protect the poor. But is strict government oversight what really protects the vulnerable from financial harm? Continue Reading...

May 10, 2021

Biden’s ‘stimulus’ for a growing economy is all about central control

Proposals for “economic stimulus”, the use of monetary or fiscal policy to stimulate the economy, have become a permanent fixture of our politics. President Joe Biden recently proposed $1.8 trillion dollars in additional “economic stimulus” in the form of the American Families Plan. Continue Reading...

April 23, 2021

The fallacy of capitalism’s ‘race to the bottom’

The Biden administration proposes a global minimum tax on corporations to end the “global race to the bottom.” Leaving aside the wisdom of letting France tax U.S.-based corporations, this phrase recalls one of the regnant canards of our time: Capitalism inevitably lowers living standards and grinds people down into poverty. Continue Reading...

April 16, 2021

Rugged entrepreneurs: How the ‘frontier experience’ shapes economic cultures

In our efforts to spur economic growth and retain American dynamism, we tend to be overly consumed by surface-level tweaks to our economic systems. Yet economists continue to discover that the distinguishing features of flourishing societies are more readily found at the levels of culture. Continue Reading...

April 09, 2021

Lessons from a kibbutz on the problems of ‘bottom-up socialism’

When making the case against socialism, many of its critics focus first on the “practical” problems: the lack of incentives and market prices, the fatal conceits of central planners, the totalitarian temptations of ruling elites, etc. Continue Reading...

March 31, 2021

Why the economy is not a zero-sum game: a simple explanation

What do these two statements have in common: “Poverty is caused by overpopulation,” and “The rich get richer only as the poor get poorer”? Answer: They both inaccurately presuppose the economy is a zero-sum game. Continue Reading...

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