Though I have written extensively about the Recession of 1920, it is worth revisiting it per Glenn Beck’s show last night.  Beck rightly pointed out that the policies of decreased taxes and decreased government spending implemented by both Harding and Coolidge paved the way for the dramatic economic growth of the roaring 20s. What Beck [...]

Sometimes no news is more telling than one might initially think and although it was hardly earth shattering for the market that the BOJ chose yesterday to keep its main benchmark rate sitting at 0.1% it does highlight the extraordinary difficulties Japan currently face in terms of sparking its economy back into some kind of [...]

1. The interest rate is a price – the price of credit like the price of any good.  In a free market the price would be set like the price of any good at the intersection of the supply of funds (our savings), and demand for funds (businesses’ and individuals’ investing [...]

In my study of political economy, one of the most overlooked yet fascinating historical episodes I have come across is the Recession of 1920-21. A handful of free-market economists have tackled this crisis, and I decided to throw in my lot with them and pursue the subject further myself.
Below is the abstract for my critique [...]

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Churchill 1942
Summary

The extent, so far, of the internal devaluation process depends on the time period used for analysis. Using Q3-2007 as the beginning of the economic crisis suggest that Greece and [...]

The Economist discussed the return of deflation in Japan (link). Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan has published an interesting publication of macroeconomic overview of the Japanese economy (link).

The Economist updated the report on the Japanese economy which again suffered from monthly deflation (link). The forecasts for the end of the year forsee deflation as a structural problem of the Japanese economy and not as a short-term phenomena that would reflect temporary declines in domestic or foreign demand. True, the financial crisis and [...]

“In my view … it is impossible to understand this crisis without reference to the global imbalances in trade and capital flows that began in the latter half of the 1990s.” Bernanke (2009)
Executive Summary

Compared with the average quarterly value of GDP in 2007-08, the first two quarters of 2009 are down in nominal terms to [...]

TRACE MAYER: Welcome back to episode #55 the RunToGold.com Podcast, I’ve got with us today a special guest, Ian Gordon from the Long Wave Group. Welcome Ian.
IAN GORDON: Thank You very much for having me.
TRACE: Great. To start off with the latest news, why do you think that the gold price is taking this rapid [...]

After a nice and entertaining week in Barcelona where I had the privilege not only to hold a seminar at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, but also to meet a host of interesting people, I thought that it would be about time that I finished my piece on the latest data from Japan which admittedly [...]