Category Archives: News/ Lessons

Re: Scandal Around Billionaire Prime Minister Leaves Czechs in Limbo Dear Sirs: I have a sure fire way not only to minimize but completely eliminate scandals over government subsidies. Eliminate the subsidies! You are welcome, Patrick Barron

Dear XXXXX, You ask, where is a Volcker-like Fed chairman today? The answer is that no president would appoint one and no government really wants one! Governments want easy money and will appoint only a Fed chairman who will succumb … Continue reading →

Navarro tells Wall Street to stay out of trade talks   There is nothing that another nation can do to harm another through trade. If a nation foolishly chooses to manipulate its currency to spur exports, it gifts goods to … Continue reading →

From today’s Open Europe news summary:   Ireland demands level playing field in any Brexit deal Speaking at a meeting of the European People’s Party (EPP) in Helsinki yesterday, the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said that Ireland wants the future … Continue reading →

Dear Sirs: Fareed Zakaria’s review of the Adam Tooze book Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World is a typical Keynesian whitewash of a deeply flawed monetary and regulatory system. Like Tooze, Zakaria sees the Federal Reserve Bank as … Continue reading →

In a recent post I explained that China’s manipulations of its own currency hurt only herself and not her trading partners and, therefore, retaliatory tariffs were not warranted and would be self-defeating anyway. China harms herself by causing her own … Continue reading →

Americans are being told that China’s currency manipulations are causing harm to its trading partners, America being the main victim. Nothing could be further from the truth. China’s currency manipulations certainly cause harm, but to China itself! No country can … Continue reading →

My letter to the Mercatus Center: Re: Should hot workers subsidize ugly ones? Excellent points by Omar Ahmad Al-Ubaydli, but aren’t all forms of irrelevant discrimination self-correcting and self-penalizing? If a company hires only beautiful workers and ignores ugly ones who may … Continue reading →

From today’s Open Europe news summary: Removing tariffs post-Brexit could see prices fall up to 1.2%, suggests new study According to a report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, UK households could see prices fall by around 0.7-1.2% if the … Continue reading →

From Open Europe news summary of 14 March 2018 (my highlight): Commenting on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Mansion House speech earlier this month, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier called it a “surprising idea” that the UK would be … Continue reading →