If High CEO Pay Troubles You, It’s A Sign You’re A Terrible Investor

Here’s a hypothetical for readers. If you had $10,000 to invest in one company, only for your investment to turn into $300,000, what would your reaction be? The question answers itself.

Any investor yearns for a 30x return, but they’re … Read More

Debt Isn’t A Worry, Treasury’s Claim On Our Production Very Much Is

In a 2015 opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, since deceased Harvard professor Thomas Stossel relayed to readers that “Of the 78 potential treatments for brain cancer that underwent clinical trials from 1998-2014, [only] three proved safe and effective enough … Read More

Sen. Marco Rubio Keeps Reminding Us Why He’s Still A Senator

How many readers of this piece were demanding Zoom before its software was launched in 2013, or Postmates before drivers in its employ began meal delivery in 2011, or transportation at the touch of a button before Uber began operating … Read More

Fed And Federal ‘Stimulus’ Did Not Spark The Market Rebound

In his essential 2018 book Burn the Business Plan, Syracuse professor and serial entrepreneur Carl Schramm laid waste to the popular notion that local governments can play venture capitalists. Getting into specifics, Schramm found that “only one of the 236 local … Read More

Let’s Please Not Insult ‘Stimulus’ By Calling This ‘Stimulus’

It’s not unreasonable to assume that if asked, most who’ve heard of supply-side economics would identify it as the Laffer Curve. The previous curve, named for the great Arthur Laffer, is one of life’s truisms: reduce the tax penalty … Read More

A Few Questions For The Many Critics Of The Gold Standard

“Money does not pay for anything, never has, never will. It is an economic axiom as old as the hills that goods and services can be paid for only with good and services.”

– Albert Jay Nock

Though the dollar’s … Read More

China Critics Rewrite Basic Economics To Fit A Declinist Narrative

If sports talk shows are to be believed, Mondays are brutal for professional and college football players. Particularly those who play for teams that lost the Saturday or Sunday before.

Monday is the day in which film of the previous … Read More

Let Walt Disney And DisneyWorld Curb Your China Paranoia

To walk through DisneyWorld’s Magic Kingdom is to see posted throughout the park various quotes from the great Walt Disney himself. Politicians would be wise to heed them. Indeed, a taxpayer boondoggle that would actually serve to enhance governance from … Read More

For Election 2020, The Trump Team Floats A Keynesian Tax Cut

Arguably the most important passage of Walter Isaacson’s book, The Innovators, was something that readers largely glossed over. In his history of Silicon Valley and the geniuses who made it, Isaacson noted that the initial wealth behind these technological iconoclasts was … Read More

The Great Conservative Crack-Up Over China

Gordon Chang is the author of a book titled The Coming Collapse of China. This likely explains why editorial pages and cable news shows frequently seek his thoughts on the country. Alarmism sells, and Chang brings it about China in spades.

… Read More

With Regard To Facebook’s Libra, What Are The Feds So Afraid Of?

At one point in his excellent 2001 book The Elusive Quest for Growth, former World Bank official William Easterly addressed the sick-inducing decline of the Argentine peso. It seems the holder of a billion pesos in the 1950s, if he held … Read More

Sanders And Warren Mistake Money For Wealth

It’s often said about 1960s and 70s Wall Street that a stockbroker could leave for lunch heavily in debt, only to return an hour later rolling in cash. Such was life in the financial world of a few decades ago. … Read More

Self-Promotion Works Best When Promoting Others First

Britax is a global corporation with a manufacturing hub in Fort Mill, South Carolina where it employs 300. It is there that the company creates car seats for children. Unknown is how long it will continue to.

While it’s surely … Read More

The Yield Curve Is Telling Us Something, But Not About The Fed

In the spring of 2013 Apple conducted a very successful, $17 billion debt offering. It was heavily oversubscribed at long and short maturities, and reflected the fact that investors trust the creditworthiness of one of the world’s most valuable corporations … Read More

The Disciples Of Keynes Are Today’s ‘Flat Earthers’

West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd died in 2010 as the longest serving U.S. senator of all time. While in office, Byrd predictably amassed enormous power such that he was able to shower West Virginia’s citizenry with all manner of government … Read More

Someone Should Remind Trump That Investment Powers All Economic Growth

“Inflation is a tax on money, wealth creation, income, and work effort. Inflation is a devastating tax on savings. But low inflation is a tax cut. By enhancing the value of financial assets, price stability rewards patient savers and investors. … Read More

WSJ’s Greg Ip’s Version Of The Gold Standard Isn’t The Gold Standard

Who knows when exactly, but sometime a few millennia ago people began to specialize. Simplified, some produced wheat, some hunted for meat, and others grew corn. That’s when money came into the picture.

Not a creation of the state, money … Read More

Trump Is Talking The Dollar — And The U.S. Economy — Into Decline

Have you ever noticed that old people tend to shrink during their golden years? It’s not so much that we’re growing in height as old people are losing theirs.

This physical truth is worth keeping in mind for readers … Read More

Is A ‘Tight’ Federal Reserve The Cause Of Buffalo, NY’s Malaise?

Buffalo, New York is seemingly the picture definition of “rust belt.” Once extraordinarily prosperous (Goldman Sachs used to have an office there), the industries that lifted it long ago are no longer relevant. We generally only hear about it during … Read More

Conservative Arguments Against Huawei Contradict What Conservatives Used To Believe

“Fail often to succeed faster” is accepted wisdom in Silicon Valley. Failure is the path to success simply because it produces the information that makes success possible. At Valley movie eminence Pixar, they rush to their problems. Basically they frontload … Read More

If Inequality Worries Ray Dalio, Then He Should Dial Up His Investment Risk

“Fortunes cannot grow; someone has to increase them. For this the successful activity of an entrepreneur is needed. The capital reproduces itself, bears fruit and increases only so long as successful and lucky investment endures.” – Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, p. 340

… Read More

What This Washington Post Journalist Learned After 544 Days In An Iranian Prison

“Jason, I want to have a baby.” Those were the words of Bloomberg reporter Yeganeh (Yegi) Rezaian to her husband Jason Rezaian (“So do I” in response), Tehran bureau chief for the Washington Post, after their July 2014 arrest in Iran on false … Read More

The Flamboyant Absurdity Of ‘Modern Monetary Theory’

“Money does not pay for anything, never has, never will. It is an economic axiom as old as the hills that goods and services can be paid for only with good and services.” – Albert Jay Nock

In a very … Read More

No, NY Times, A Government Shutdown Won’t Shrink Economic Growth

While some readers of this column are perhaps already familiar with this historical anecdote, it’s worth repeating every now and then that as recently as the year 2000, the state of Ohio had more paved roads than all of Russia … Read More