Once upon a time, there were three neighboring families with young children. They all needed babysitting at different times and there was a shortage of reliable professional babysitters in the neighborhood. The neighbors all wanted their children to be able…
Blog Archives
How to indebt future generations. Borrowing alone does not do it!
Private investors were begging governments to borrow more money in 2015. Interest rates were extremely low: Government debt cannot significantly be a significant burden when interest rates are that low. For example, when interest rates are zero, there is no…
Posted in Macro, Public Finance
The mistaken libertarian/anarchist theology underpinning bitcoin and other blockchain currencies
Ian Bogost writes that Cryptocurrency Might be a Path to Authoritarianism. You should read the full article for full effect, but he says that “Extreme libertarians built blockchain to decentralize government and corporate power,” but he warns that blockchain could…
Posted in Macro, Public Finance
Gross Output (GO) vs. Gross Domestic Expenditure (GDE) vs. Gross Domestic Transactions (GDT) and why we need to use readily available banking system data to estimate GDT
Mark Skousen is part of the Austrian economics heterodox tradition, and he promoted a measure called Gross Output (GO) as a measure of the economy. Skousen likes to quote Steve Forbes who called it “revolutionary” and such “a big deal”…
Posted in Macro
Shoulda bought Bitcoin a year ago…
The WSJ found a great way to show how much bitcoin has risen this year: Their video is fun too. Many bitcoin fans argue that this price rise is based on the fundamental value of bitcoin. I agree with the…
Posted in Macro
Zero debt would be an economic disaster.
I often see articles that claim that rising debt is an inherently bad thing. For example, Erik at data-driven thoughts appears alarmed: The average debt that an American holds has increased by 200x since 1943, from ~50 dollars to ~10,300 dollars.…
Posted in Macro
Chris House’s Soft Bigotry Of Low Expectations
University of Michigan economist, Chris House gave recommendations for the two most important economics writings for all Americans to read: If I could dictate the reading habits of my fellow Americans, I might put Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century on the…
Posted in Macro
Medianism 