Guest Contributor

Taxes vs Tariffs

Are Some Forms of Taxation Worse Than Others for the Economy?

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All taxation is generally bad for the economy…this is why virtually every administration that’s tried tax cuts has found them to be stimulative to the economy, going all the way back to at least JFK. Now, as the question suggests, there are different ways government takes resources out of the private sector, and they all have different characteristics regarding exactly who they harm.

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Modern Monetary Theory

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)

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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.

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California Utilities

California’s Latest Hustle: Utility Bills Based on Ratepayers’ Income

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Utility bills—for electricity, natural gas, water, and garbage—have by long-standing tradition been based on customer usage, measured in kilowatt-hours of electricity, therms or Btu of natural gas, hundred cubic feet of water, or number of garbage cans. Every residence and business has electric, gas, and water meters that measure utility usage… But what if utilities based their fixed fee on customers’ income levels rather than a flat uniform fee for every customer?

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Lincoln Money

America’s Fiat Money Gestapo: The Untold History of the Secret Service

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There is an untold story in American monetary history. Some are reluctant even to discuss it. I’m referring to the US Secret Service’s very own role in the destruction of sound money in America.
As constitutional, sound money in the form of physical gold and silver coins—whether minted privately or not—became an annoying impediment to expanding the size and power of the federal government, central planners began circulating unbacked paper proxies and formed a Gestapo-like police agency to enforce the scheme.
Founded in 1865, toward the tail end of the American Civil War, the Secret Service originated as a branch of the US Treasury Department.

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dollar-hegemony

Is the U.S. Dollar Hegemony Ending?

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The U.S. has been the currency of foreign exchange ever since the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. It did experience a crisis of confidence in the 1970s, but the Nixon / Kissinger deal with Saudi Arabia to create the PetroDollar whereby all oil sales had to be completed in U.S. Dollars (in exchange for military support) recemented the dollar’s prominence for another half-century. But now things are changing. In today’s article, Patrick Barron looks at the current state of Dollar hegemony.

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CPI

How Long Will This Recession Last?

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The most important question for asset prices right now, from stocks to houses to Bitcoin, is whether we’re due for a recession. Last week we got confirmation that according to the traditional definition of a recession – 2 quarters of negative growth – we are already in a recession.
The response from this administration has been denial and word games rather than actually trying to stop the slide. At which point the betting shifts to whether it’ll be a shallow 1991-style recession or a big, 2008-style one, perhaps with a financial crisis to spice things up.

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Ukraine-Russia Map

Will Russian Sanctions Open a Can of Worms?

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The current financial sanctions against Russia are totally unprecedented. Although sanctions have been used against terrorists they have never been used like this against a Sovereign state. The U.S. and its allies have unleashed all sorts of economic sanctions against Russia as we talked about in our article Economic Warfare Deployed Against Russia. But there is a downside to all these sanctions not only against the Russian nation but also against key players within the country. If the U.S. can sanction foreign individuals what could they do to Citizens if they wanted to? 

Although mostly symbolic, Russia has retaliated by placing sanctions against several Americans, including Joe and Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton,  Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. Russia’s foreign ministry also announced sanctions against 313 Canadians including Trudeau. Russia’s move prevents those named from entering Russia and freezes any assets the individuals have there, according to the BBC. 

In addition to putting a massive (but temporary) hurt on Russia, sanctions will also negatively affect many Western Countries, although it won’t be too long before Asian and Middle Eastern countries take up the slack in Russian trade. In today’s article Brendan Brown looks at some of the possible long-term ramifications of these sanctions.~ Tim McMahon, edito

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