Don’t Worry About the Yuan

Especially during dismal economic times, many Americans—goaded by media figures and politicians—look with suspicion on foreigners. This tendency is most obvious in anti-immigrant sentiment, but also manifests itself in a drive for protective tariffs and other trade restrictions. Over the past few years China’s “currency manipulation” has been a particularly hot-button issue. Pundits claim the [...]

The Improbable Prose of Nassim Nicholas Taleb

As I get older and more cynical, I tend to look down on the latest “hot” idea or person. Sure, teenage pop stars and the novelist Dan Brown are talented, but they’re not nearly as extraordinary as their popular status would suggest. Every once in a while, though, something impresses me despite such cynicism. Nassim [...]

Government Must Keep Track of Derivatives?

Regardless of what caused the crisis, government efforts to regulate derivatives will only lock in undesirable aspects of the current market and ensure that politically connected players reap artificial gains. It is absurd to ask politicians to promote financial integrity and sound accounting. They are the worst violators of these principles on the planet.

Did Deregulated Derivatives Cause the Financial Crisis?

For a few months in 2008 I naively thought that the disastrous financial “rescue” actions led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would at least be counterbalanced by widespread recognition that our economic turmoil had been government’s handiwork. How wrong I was. By the time of this writing, the mainstream press had delivered the “consensus” judgment [...]

Politicians Eye the Oil Market

With oil prices setting records every week and gas prices topping $4 per gallon, voters are getting increasingly angry. This naturally makes the politicians nervous, so they do what they can to divert blame from themselves at all costs. Two easy targets are “Big Oil” and speculators. In this article we’ll see that the politicians’ [...]

The Fed Didn’t Bail Out Wall Street?

In his New York Times column (“It’s Monetary Policy, Not a Morality Play,” September 9, 2007), Tyler Cowen decried the clichéd pattern of casting all financial stories into “simple moral narratives.” Although many commentators have questioned the Fed’s handling of the credit crunch last August and September, Cowen sees no hanky-panky: Talk of a bailout [...]

Are CEOs Paid Too Much?

One of Reader’s Digest’s more popular sections is “That’s Outrageous!” When the feature spotlights government pork-barrel projects, absurd zoning restrictions on homeowners, or illogical regulations on small business, libertarians can applaud. Unfortunately the October 2005 issue featured a column that focused on “outrageous” CEO packages, an enduring controversy. The writer, Michael Crowley, displayed precious little [...]

An Aging Population Is No Threat to a Free Society