Category: Economy
Another Banking Crisis in Making?
by Steven Pressman | May 1, 2023 | EconomySilicon Valley Bank (aka SVB) collapsed on March 10, followed by Signature Bank two days later. Fearing mass panic, the FDIC decided to make whole all deposits at both banks, even though they were insured only up to $250,000. On March 16, First Republic Bank was saved from bankruptcy when several large banks lent it […]
The New Populist Bogeyman: Central Bank Digital Currencies
by Dave Troy | Apr 11, 2023 | Economy, The Wide AngleOnline propagandists and populist candidates have set their sights on a new enemy: Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). These currencies differ from private-sector cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in that they are state-sanctioned and operated. Newly-expressed concerns over CBDCs augment long-running populist disdain for the Federal Reserve and other central banks. Opponents of CBDCs cite the potential […]
Money Matters, Especially When It Comes to Children
by Steven Pressman | Mar 28, 2023 | EconomyIt is an article of faith among conservatives that government programs are wasteful expenditures. This is the standard line of the Wall Street Journal editorial pages and the Republican Party. Going further, Charles Murray’s book Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980, argued that expanding welfare programs during the 1970s increased poverty in the United States […]
The Wide Angle: Financial Unreality and The Cult of Pinochet
by Dave Troy | Mar 27, 2023 | Economy, The Wide AngleThe recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank demonstrated in clear terms that financial reality is a shared hallucination. And financial reality, a useful social construct, goes a long way to shaping our physical reality. For the businesses threatened by a potential meltdown of the bank, a cashflow freeze meant the difference between real people getting […]
The Wide Angle: Crash the Global Economy? It’s Harder than It Sounds.
by Dave Troy | Feb 27, 2023 | Economy, The Wide AngleMany of us are familiar with the phenomenon of “dorm room philosophy” and its derivative field, “dorm room economics.” Often, it is rooted in the clunky prose of Ayn Rand and the simple, common-sense decrees of Austrian economics, along with the limited life experience common to all young people — particularly young men. Rand’s “objectivism” […]