Lessons from Squanto

Posted on November 23, 2017 by MN Gordon

Governments across the planet will go to any length to meddle in the lives and private affairs of their citizens.  This is what our experiences and observations have shown.  What gives?

For one, politicians have an aversion to freedom and liberty.  They want to control your behavior, choices, and decisions.  What’s more, they want to use your money to do so.

Here in the United States, bureaucrats, flush with authority, will stand in the way of a fellow who’s striving to find his own way by his own means.  Licenses, permits, fees, employer identification numbers, state board of equalization registrations, workers compensation insurance…you name it.  All this – and more – are needed prior to hanging out your shingle and making your first sale.

Many cities in the land of the free require school kids to get a permit just to operate a lemonade stand.  And don’t even think of opening an auto shop, let alone a medical practice.  You’ll spend your first year’s profits getting your hazardous materials business plan approved by the fire department. Continue reading →

Posted in Government Debt, MN Gordon | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

How Uncle Sam Inflates Away Your Life

Posted on November 17, 2017 by MN Gordon

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” once remarked economist and Nobel Prize recipient Milton Friedman.  He likely meant that inflation is the more rapid increase in the supply of money relative to the output of goods and services which money is traded for.

As more and more money is issued relative to the output of goods and services in an economy, the money’s watered down and loses value.  By this account, price inflation is not in itself rising prices.  Rather, it’s the loss of purchasing power resulting from an inflating money supply.

Indeed, Friedman offered a shrewd insight.  However, he also accompanied it with an opportunist mindset.  Friedman saw promise in the phenomenon of monetary inflation.  Moreover, he saw it as a means to improve human productivity and economic growth.

You see, a stable money supply was not good enough for Friedman.  He advocated for moderate levels of monetary growth, and inflation, to perpetually stimulate the economy.  By hardwiring consumers with the expectation of higher prices, policy makers could compel a relentless consumer demand. Continue reading →

Posted in Inflation, MN Gordon | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Is Fed Chair Nominee Jay Powell, Count Dracula?

Posted on November 10, 2017 by MN Gordon

The gray hue of dawn quickly slipped to a bright clear sky as we set out last Saturday morning.  The season’s autumn tinge abounded around us as the distant mountain peaks, and their mighty rifts, grew closer.  The nighttime chill stubbornly lingered in the crisp air.

Like Jonathan Harker’s journey to Transylvania roughly 120 years ago, we also traveled eastward.  Our route, however, did not take as through Vienna and Budapest.  Nor did it take us upward into the Carpathian Mountains.

Instead, we traversed along the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, passing from the Angeles National Forest to the San Bernardino National Forest.  Then we climbed upward to the mile-high Oak Glen village, up above the outermost rim of the Los Angeles Basin.  We’d finally outrun Southern California’s seemingly endless sea of concrete.

At this mountain hamlet, we didn’t witness one single stoplight or franchise drive-thru.  Billboards, transmission lines, rail corridors, and graffiti art did not blight the countryside.  The built milieu hardly scared the natural landscape. Continue reading →

Posted in Inflation, MN Gordon | Tagged , , , , , | 19 Comments

How to Survive the Winter

Posted on November 3, 2017 by MN Gordon

One of the fringe benefits of living in a country that’s in dire need of a political, financial, and cultural reset, is the twisted amusement that comes with bearing witness to its unraveling. Day by day we’re greeted with escalating madness.  Indeed, the great fiasco must be taken lightly, so as not to be demoralized by its enormity.

Of particular note is the present cast of characters.  Could Bill Shakespeare himself have come up with a more flawless flock of scoundrels to take the plotless narrative from comedy to tragedy?

There’s President Trump, Hillary Clinton, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Maxine Waters, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Robert Mueller, the Podesta Brothers, all of Congress; the list of political actors goes on and on.  Moreover, it wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t also mention former A-lister’s Barney Frank and O-Bama.

The political class’ efforts to climb and crawl over each other to reach the top of the dust heap and stay there are without restraint.  Promises, lies, coercions, and deceits are all part of Washington’s standard operating procedures.  They’ll steal from your kids and lie to grandma to get what they want. Continue reading →

Posted in Economy, MN Gordon | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments