The Daily Economy
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Who Pays to Keep Bitcoin Running?
When you hand someone a dollar bill, gold coin, or bushel of wheat, the transaction doesn’t require much effort to execute. The seller holds a physical object, and apart from counterfeiting, knows that he or she has been paid. When you pay someone by credit card, money must be digitally transferred between accounts, but this…
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Latest Data Suggest Tight Housing, Labor Markets
A day after the National Association of Realtors reported a 2.7 percent rise in existing-home sales for the year through May, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, a division of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, reported a 6.8 percent increase in home-purchase prices for the 12 months through April. Among the nine Census regions…
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Existing-Home Sales Flattening, Restrained by Low Inventory
Existing-home sales rose a modest 1.1 percent in May, held back by a tight supply of available existing homes for sale. Compared to a year ago, existing-home sales were up 2.7 percent. The inventory of homes for sale rose 2.1 percent to 1.96 million, pushing the months’ supply (the total inventory divided by the current…
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Blockchain: Food that Regulates Itself?
Blockchain technology could revolutionize the way food supply chains work.
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The Trump Administration Proposes Streamlining Financial Regulation
When the housing bubble burst in 2007 shortcomings were revealed in the risk-management practices of many financial institutions. During the Great Recession, the Financial Conditions Leverage Index reached the highest level since the 1970s. Financial institutions learned from the crisis and shored up their balance sheets. They have since increased their capital, raised liquidity standards,…
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Around the Web
Some interesting reading from this week: A Firm Hand of Repression: The Espionage Act Turns 100, Damon Root, Reason The Impetus for GSE Reform, Ike Brannon, Cato Institute What if Taxpayers Could Choose if Taxes Went to the State or Federal Level?, Ryan McMaken, Mises Institute Don’t Underestimate This U.S. Expansion: It’s Headed to a…
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Mixed Economic Data a Day After the Fed Raises Rates
The Fed raised the target range for the federal funds rate by a quarter point yesterday to 1.0 − 1.25 percent, the fourth rate increase in the current business cycle and the second increase of 2017. The Fed also updated its Summary Economic Projections, known as the dot plots, though very little changed. The more…
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Retail Sales and CPI Fall In May
On the day the Federal Reserve is expected to raise the target for the federal funds rate for the second time this year, key economic reports have posted declines showing broad weakness. Retail sales and the Consumer Price Index fell 0.3 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, suggesting that despite a strong labor market and monetary…
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AIER’s Teach-the-Teachers 2017 Program Starts
The summer has started, so AIER is going on the road to provide a professional-development workshop for teachers in St. Louis, Miami, and Omaha.
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Business Cycles Are Credit Cycles
E. C. Harwood was an unrelenting critic of the Federal Reserve and the inflationary bias of the monetary gurus.
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Around the Web
Welcome to the first installment of Around the Web. Each Friday, we’ll highlight a few articles we came across during the week that we found particularly interesting and informative. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did. Will the Crazy Global Debt Bubble Ever End? – Charles Hugh Smith, Mises Institute …
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Government Intervention in Health Insurance Falls Short
The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, fell short of its main objectives. The goal of Obamacare was to expand access to health care and to reduce costs.It failed because it attempted to force transactions that would not happen in a free market. The act mandated that insurance companies offer coverage in the individual…
