"If one repeatedly learns that feeding a beast can briefly appease it, but predictably makes it more enormous, savage, and unstable, it is best to remember the lesson. Instead, central bankers have doomed the world to learn that lesson again." Continue reading →
"Millions of Obamacare customers who do not qualify for financial aid to lower the cost of their health insurance — or who opt not to apply for such assistance — pay the full cost of coverage for their plans. While the Republican Obamacare replacement bill pending in Congress would increase the number of people who would qualify for subsidies, the bill is also expected to increase average premiums over the next two years higher than they would be under Obamacare." Continue reading →
"We devote impressive money and manpower to the fight against illegal immigration, but meanwhile, in Big Bend, one can find a modest example of free enterprise defying borders." Continue reading →
"The worst part of Venezuela’s tragedy is that it was so obviously predictable. Economists familiar with the work of Ludwig von Mises understood the necessary results of socialist policies. A sound money and freely floating prices provide a society with functioning markets that deliver the goods to the people. The market economy is true populism." Continue reading →
"A new form of insurance that this law may create: A policy that would pay for health insurance premiums if the user ever got sick enough to need them. Such insurance would be very cheap, as the maximum exposure to the insurance company is only 130% of the premium for a standard health insurance policy. In the end, the only people buying health insurance would be those who can buy it for free using their tax credits and really sick people for whom insurance premiums are cheaper than their medical bills. But as insurance companies lose money on the latter group, they will be forced to raise their premiums on the former. This puts us right back in the box we are stuck in with Obamacare." Continue reading →
"One famous answer to the riddle of fiat money is that governments use force to ensure that fiat money is valued. But this can't be the case in Somalia: it hasn't had a government since 1991, yet shillings continue to be accepted." Continue reading →
"As long as investors are comfortable with expected S&P 500 10-12 year total returns of less than 1% annually, with likely interim losses on the order of 50-60%, investors are free to label this situation as 'fairly valued' or with any other phrase they wish." Continue reading →
Developed-world governments are joining their developing-world counterparts in governing by surprise and openly placing their citizens' wealth at risk through anti-cash messaging and actions. Continue reading →
As an increasingly desperate Congress looks for new ways to squeeze money out of the American people to fund the welfare-warfare state, it is likely that more Americans will have their liberties limited because the IRS accuses them of not paying their fair share of taxes.
"For investors with $12 trillion of negative-rate bonds worldwide, U.S. junk securities and their 6.9 percent average yield look like a gold mine. But with so many investors streaming into the market, the debt is now yielding almost 3 percentage points less than the average of the past two decades, Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data show. And they’re buying it up at the same time that junk-rated borrowers default at the fastest pace in six years." Continue reading →