Tag: Great Depression
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The wizards of Wall Street are no wizards
During our recent cruise, we at least got grainy MSNBC satellite TV. When I watched it, I watched the stock market yo-yo back and forth pretty much every day: the DJIA down a thousand one day, and it would often recover it the next day. The general trend though was down, a lot. In a…
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The negatives of negative interest rates
Donald Trump wants the Federal Reserve to drop interest rates to zero or to even allow them to go negative. It’s pretty obvious why: so he can avoid being at the wheel if a recession inconveniently hits before Election Day. He’s clearly freaking out about the election still more than a year away, as also…
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Trade deficits don’t matter but tariffs sure do
A couple of posts ago I pointed out that trade deficits don’t really matter. This is because trade deficits merely report the difference of the value of goods exchanged between countries. A trade deficit with China demonstrates that in general we get better bargains trading with companies in China than from buying them internally or…
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Do trade deficits really matter?
So we are having trade wars at the moment. Trump started all of them, first with a 30% tariff on solar panels manufactured in China but then on steel imports. It expanded into tariffs against Canada, Mexico, the European Union and more tariffs on China. Predictably these countries responded with counter-tariffs designed to give Trump’s…
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No right to work in “right to work” laws
Wisconsin is the latest state to enact a so-called “right to work” law. With this law exactly half of the states are now right to work states. If your state is a right to work state, this means that you cannot be required to join a union as a condition for taking a job. If…
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The dangers of deficit fever
Why study history? After all, many people (particularly students) find history boring. However, there are excellent reasons for studying history. By observing our actions in the past and their effect we can predict with a fair amount of confidence whether they will work again. For example, based on our experience during the Great Depression, cutting…
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Government is the price of progress
Some years back I read a review of the book Children of the Depression. I purchased the book, which is full of glossy black and white pictures documenting ordinary life for children in America during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The pictures were found in the archives of the now defunct Farm Security Administration.…
Occam's Razor 