President Trump wants the United States to buy Greenland, and European recalcitrance against the idea led him to impose further tariffs on the EU to spur negotiations. Trump’s negotiating techniques may be rough, but the geopolitical advantages of a U.S. takeover of Greenland are clear, and EU hatred of Trump should not be allowed to block negotiations. Whether or not the interim solution reached late in the week proves real, there is a Greenland purchase deal to be done and past such transactions can be used to set an appropriate price. Continue reading →

The most Important financial market news this week was not the U.S. Justice Department’s opening an investigation into Fed Chairman Powell over the Fed’s grossly mismanaged building project, but Powell’s hysterically arrogant and entitled response to it, which was joined by other central bank chiefs. The Fed Chairman is not above the law, and the Fed has arrogated to itself an altogether excessive power over our lives. President Trump’s monetary instincts may be foolish, but his belief is correct that the Fed needs taking down a few pegs to ensure our future prosperity. Continue reading →

In major markets, there have been two occasions when stock market indices have crashed and stayed below their peak for a quarter-century. One was the U.S. in 1929, where the Dow Jones Industrial Index finally topped its 1929 peak in 1954. The other was Japan, where the December 1989 Nikkei peak of 38,915.87 was surpassed only in February 2024. Sorry, Trump-san, but the current U.S. market looks more like late 1980s Japan than any U.S. predecessor and the market downturn may last as long (in inflation-adjusted terms) as Japan’s, which would end it in 2060. Continue reading →

In a sound political system, it should be obvious that the principal task of politicians is to maximize the living standards and life quality of the people they govern. Given that truism, the politician’s principal economic aim should be to ensure that their constituents’ labor is as expensive as possible. This will ensure that new technologies are introduced rapidly, further improving constituents’ living standards. Cheap labor is a feudalist and rent-seeking shibboleth, the aim for which undermines society and sharply reduces human happiness. Continue reading →

In discussing modern American, British or global politics, I often find myself on a different planet from other commentators, because my preferred political system is not that of any modern polity, but that of Britain under Lord Liverpool’s government from 1812 to 1827. Most of the policies were better in that government’s earlier years, but the economic results were better after 1820. In the lull between Christmas and New Year, I would like to review why I believe those policies to be optimal, and what would be necessary to bring them back. Of course, as often in these columns, mere political realism is not my prime objective! Continue reading →

JP Morgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon recently expressed a preference for Kevin Warsh over Kevin Hassett as the next Fed Chairman, on the grounds that Warsh is less likely to be influenced by President Trump’s calls for rate cuts. To one who has followed bankers for several decades (and been one in the distant past) this was surprising; big banks are net beneficiaries of easy money and low interest rates and generally wish such conditions to continue ad infinitum. Dimon is however a very prominent canary in the banking coal mine, and his remarks may suggest banks are finally coming to their senses and hoping for sound money. If so, it is long past time! Continue reading →

Britain, the EU and Canada have instituted regimes of “thought police” where police departments randomly arrest those “guilty” of politically incorrect social media postings. They have also in recent years suffered economic growth rates far below their historic norms, which have produced a yawning gap between their living standards and those of the by no means economically dynamic United States (until this year, the probably robust growth figures for the 3rd quarter of which are being held back by the presumably anti-Trump BEA statistics agency). The two factors are closely connected; a system of thought police was economically ruinous behind the Iron Curtain and even in its current form is crippling growth today where it has appeared. I will explain how and why. Continue reading →

Ronald Reagan was a pretty good President but like all of us not perfect. Probably his greatest blunder, like Margaret Thatcher’s and without her excuse of facing an unexpected end to her rule, lay in not securing a successor who would follow his principles. The Presidency of George H.W. Bush (Bush 41), whose break with Reagan was signaled by his slimy 1988 Convention Acceptance Speech invocation of a “kinder, gentler America” was economically a disaster; his son’s (Bush 43) subsequent Presidency was just as bad. We are still paying the price of their misdeeds and will continue to do so for decades yet. Continue reading →