Transferring goods from the private sphere to the public sphere is not the harmless conversion that MMT proponents and other lovers of big government imply. When they say that they only want to make a few more goods public, what they’re not saying is that those goods will likely, if not certainly, be used to serve far fewer consumers and to satisfy far less urgent and valuable wants.
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) Read More »
Canada’s standard of living is on track for its worst decline in 40 years, according to a new study by Canada’s Fraser Institute.
The study compared the three worst periods of decline in Canada in the last 40 years — the 1989 recession, the 2008 global financial crisis, and this post-pandemic era.
They found that unlike the previous recessions, Canada is not recovering this time. Something broke.
One in three Canadians work for the government, making 30% more salary than the average taxpayer. Roughly 10% of Canadians are on welfare.
Canada’s Economic Crisis Read More »
Everyone knows that the Crypto market is volatile. And we got another dose of that on the 4th of July. But rather than fireworks, Crypto markets crashed. The year 2024, started out very bullish for Crypto, with Bitcoin (BTC) up sharply… partly due to BTC getting approval for ETFs and partly due to the expected halving which would cut supply. But so far this year, the truism “Buy the rumor, Sell the news” has held for the Bitcoin halving.
Crypto: Crash or Opportunity? Read More »
Argentina’s “Chainsaw policy” shows how stifling red tape and bureaucracy can be and how beneficial eliminating it can be. Two months after Milei assumed the presidency, nine thousand state jobs had been eliminated, and by the end of March fifteen thousand layoffs had been ordered. Furthermore, when Javier Milei spoke at the IEFA Latam Forum, he mentioned that seventy thousand contracts of public employes were going to be canceled. He also mentioned that two hundred thousand social programs were eliminated, and public works were also eliminated.
Not surprisingly, the state has not only not collapsed, but it has experienced its third consecutive fiscal surplus, showing unequivocally to the world that the excessive state bureaucracies do nothing but harm.
Bureaucracy: The Red Tape that Prevents Economic Growth Read More »
Mainstream financial news today is replete with stories about “distress” in the commercial real estate market. But what is the precise nature of this distress, and what implications does it have for those outside of the respective industry or asset class? More importantly, what set of factors contributed to the distress, and what does that say about its potential alleviation?
Broadly, “distress” in the commercial real estate context refers to the inability of a property, or portfolio of properties, to make required payments on the underlying loan (to “service debt,” in industry terms). There is also physical distress—lack of physical upkeep, accumulation of deferred maintenance, etc.—but the inability to service debt is what’s generally referred to as distress in the financial media. I’ll refer to this as financial distress and focus on it as the more relevant driver of immediate and material negative implications for owners and investors.
In the following discussion, I’ll draw on my previous experience in the hospitality and core commercial real estate industry—specifically, my involvement in restructuring, recapitalization, and various other forms of dealing with financially distressed assets in the wake of the 2008–9 crash. I’ll also use my current role as the founder of a private equity real estate company focused on apartments to expound on the current issues in that specific industry. Throughout, I will highlight connections between financial distress and economic management by government at the expense of the free market.
How Washington and the Fed Caused the Commercial Real Estate Crisis Read More »
The credibility of free market capitalism is constantly threatened by critics who doubt its propensity for engendering prosperity. Its reputation is battered daily by the venomous pens of left-leaning writers advocating statist alternatives and their conservative allies touting economic nationalism. However, such narratives are frequently punctured by the piercing evidence of empirical data. Anticapitalism offers nothing beyond the appeal of emotional rhetoric.
The Results Are In: Free Market Capitalism Improves Lives Read More »
This past week a few slightly “under-the-radar” events caused a major shift in the crypto arena that most people are totally unaware of. Just a couple of weeks ago, Joe Biden was threatening to Veto pro-Crypto legislation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was railing about the evils of crypto and how it is only good for hiding assets and mafia transactions. And the Democrat-controlled Security Exchange Commission (SEC) is actively targeting several major crypto sponsors despite having approved Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) in January.
Then along comes Trump, who holds a Crypto “Love Fest” at Mar-a-Lago, which catapults crypto into the political spectrum… Ethereum ETFs are approved… the House approves the FIT21 Act, and the tide against Crypto has turned.
The Tectonic Shift in Crypto Read More »
A lot is happening in the cryptoscape both from a regulatory and an innovation standpoint. Crypto has the potential to revolutionize the world as much as the Industrial Revolution, transistors, computers, or the internet did. And it is still in its infancy. But it is still possible for regulations to try to strangle the infant in its crib. But if that happens in one country, the innovation will simply move somewhere where it is appreciated. This could be devastating for the economy of any country that gets this wrong and tries to stifle innovation.
Crypto Goes Mainstream Read More »
Our ROC system is very good at spotting major turning points in the market. So this month we adapted it to look at Bitcoin and Ethereum. While doing this we changed the look of how we do ROC, so we will be adapting the regular ROC charts to the new style as well. The advantage of this new look is that you can see the underlying index at the same time, so you can see exactly where the various signals kicked in and how it evolved from there. Also, I think the new look is much cleaner and less cluttered.
Applying the ROC to Crypto Read More »
Economics education fails to communicate the obvious fact that markets solve problems, not that they require that all problems have already been solved. That students struggle with understanding the use and value of models, and may draw the wrong conclusions when studying market forces in the abstract, is unfortunate but understandable. It is the duty of the economics instructor to make sure students do not get the wrong ideas—that they go home with a greater understanding of how economies and markets work. Education, after all, should be enlightening and provide the student with new knowledge.
Economic Education Has Become Economic Disinformation Read More »
