In general I am in favor of self-determination for small nations. I would have been on South Carolina’s side in 1861 (though not on the issue of slavery, obviously), and in 1991 I was on the side of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and the other dissolving parts of the former Yugoslavia. However, in today’s world it […]

We have had eight, nearly nine years of zero interest rates and negative real interest rates. You don’t have to be a convinced Austrian economist to believe that in this length of time an extraordinary amount of “malinvestment” – investment that is not justified by economic reality – has grown up. Now that interest rates […]

Crunch time is here for the Trump administration, and for us all. President Trump’s economic policies, in particular his deregulation and an ongoing rise in interest rates, will if they work as advertised produce a surge in productivity growth that will allow the United States to pay the bills coming due. If the productivity growth […]

In a column last month “Europe needs an Anti-Maastricht Treaty” I outlined the kinds of reform that would make the EU beneficial for its member states and their inhabitants. I did not however at that stage see much chance for such a reform occurring. Now with the French election on April 23 and May 7, […]

Gordon Moore propounded in 1965 his Law, that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles every two years. That Law has been gradually ceasing to apply over the last few years. Meanwhile, Eroom’s Law, that the cost of discovering a new drug doubles every nine years, appears to continue in full strength. Our […]

President Trump has promised financial de-regulation, and has hired the former Chief Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, to design it. Given Goldman’s sorry record over the last decade, that should worry us. It should worry us even more when we consider that there is no sign of a change in Fed policies, so […]

The last couple of weeks have been full of events justifying predictions made in this column over the years, which is very gratifying. A 2010 prediction in this column and in a presentation to the American College of Cardiology talked about the possibility of de-globalization. Remarkably, that prediction appears to be coming to pass. I […]

In the first week of Donald Trump’s Presidency, it is becoming clearer what kind of President he will be. There are elements of Andrew Jackson – Democrats now know how John Quincy Adams’ acolytes felt when a drunken mob of Jackson’s supporters ransacked the White House. While Trump is no racist economic illiterate, as Jackson […]

Donald Trump’s Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos is getting flak from both sides – from the left because she is not fully committed to unionized public education, from the right because she appears at least neutral on the “Common Core” national standards mandated by the Obama administration. Education is important – it is how we […]

Establishment journals such as the Economist and the Financial Times, and the participants in this week’s Davos rock festival have recently been decrying defeats for “liberalism” in the votes for Brexit and Donald Trump. Naturally, we are expected to sympathize: after all, what right-thinking person could object to liberalism? There is just one problem: the […]