Updated January 8, 2024 Business cycles are the fluctuations in national income and unemployment. Before the Great Depression, economists had been debating whether or not the government could use monetary and fiscal policy to fight recessions. The mainstream classical school…
Blog Archives
Corporate takeover of groceries
Stacy Mitchell is the executive director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance who studies the problem of big businesses eating the entire economy. An economy full of small businesses has Less monopoly power which can mean lower prices. Greater diversity…
Median inflation (or other trimmed means) work best because of high variation in price changes
The standard inflation indexes track the average change in prices and one of the problems with using any average that is disproportionately influenced by outliers that are highly volatile due to market forces that have nothing to do with monetary…
Posted in Macro
TIPS for investing and predicting inflation
A lot of people are worried about inflation because of hysteria at the Wall Street Journal and other media reports that sensationalize the issue. I’m not worried because I trust the bond market which predicts inflation better than anyone. To…
Posted in Macro
Zero-reserve banking: Another historic revolution.
Updated 10/25/2023 The Fed eliminated all reserve requirements for banks on March 16, 2020 for the first time in history and I didn’t even know about it until today because it got very little press, perhaps because it was the…
Posted in Macro
Blockchain NFTs have nothing to do with ownership rights. They are merely collectables and receipts for donations.
NFTs are not property rights just like Bitcoin is not money. Property rights are usually described as a bundle of rights, but every concept can be described as having a bundle of qualities, so what matters is determining what qualities…
Bitcoin is not money. Therefore it cannot replace the dollar which IS money.
UPDATED on 4/24/21 Bitcoin is not money. There are three main functions of money: 1) a unit of account (a measurement of value); 2) a medium of exchange; and 3) a store of value. The most important and unique function of money…
Posted in Macro
Medianism 