Kabosu, the Shiba Inu dog made famous by the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, died recently at the age of 18 – a good run for even a famous dog. Dogecoin itself is far from its April 2021 market capitalization of $50 billion, although its current $8.8 billion ranks it a very respectable ninth on the cryptocurrency league table. A new movie “Dumb Money” celebrated the GameStop/ Dogecoin retail-driven stock and crypto- boom of 2021; a blistering review by hedge-fund manager Clifford Asness in the Wall Street Journal denounces the movie vitriolically, mostly for its assumption that amateurs could beat the “People who have spent their entire careers committed to the practice” of investing. However, institutional investors have always underperformed the market on average and the “wisdom of crowds” is generally wrong. It is worth trying to explain why. Continue reading →

The current U.S. and British education systems are increasingly dysfunctional. Far too high a percentage of the population has been bullied into attending college, with very little benefit in most cases and with costs that have escalated several times faster than inflation or even incomes. The faculty and administration of top colleges are increasingly isolated from the political outlook of their fellow citizens – and increasingly unconstrained in forcing their warped worldview on the untrained youthful minds in their care. Fortunately, help is at hand, from online learning and artificial intelligence. These will revolutionize both learning and job possibilities, forcing change that may allow us to cut down to size both colleges and their costs. Continue reading →

President Trump has proposed a universal 10% tariff on U.S. imports and has been met by universal derision among professional economists. Not so fast! High tariffs were a feature of Republican governance before the Great Depression. While they operated on a “beggar my neighbor” basis against the British steel industry, for example, they have retained an inchoate appeal to Republican voters that Trump exploited in his 2016 campaign and as President. A low universal tariff, such as Trump now proposes, may be both politically and economically optimal, as I shall explain. Continue reading →

At the end of 2019, the Standard and Poor’s 500 index of U.S. share prices stood at 3221.29. Since then, the United States has been subjected to a devastating epidemic, has wasted trillions of dollars in response to that epidemic, driving its debt to GDP ratio up to 108%, has suffered debilitating inflation that has caused interest rates to be raised sharply, and has replaced competent economic policies with ones that seem especially designed for economic destruction. Yet the S&P 500 Index is today up a full 40% from its December 2019 level. When examined carefully, the market is not only overvalued, it stands at three times its fair level. Continue reading →

Jason Furman, in the Wall Street Journal, is just the latest former senior financial official (Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, 2013-17) to suggest the Fed should raise its inflation target above the current 2%. We know what these people want – a target high enough that rates can be reduced to zero again, below the rate of inflation, benefiting their rich friends with access to leverage. For the rest of us, there is only one proper inflation target: zero. Adopting that target would solve most of the economic problems currently plaguing the West. Continue reading →

In 1830, Britain was completely economically dominant, the only significant industrial power. Since that time, it has steadily lost its industrial dominance and that relative decline, while to an extent inevitable, was hurried along by a grossly malign approach to policy which persists today. Unless it is reversed, further accelerating decline is ahead. Continue reading →

Fitch last week was the second rating agency to downgrade the U.S. government’s long-term debt rating from AAA to AA plus – Standard and Poor’s had already done so in 2011 and only Moody’s remains at the highest level. But the U.S. debt to GDP ratio has risen by nearly half since 2011, and the Social Security and Medicare systems have swung from small annual surpluses into massive deficits. Maybe, when looked at rationally and free from political pressure, the U.S. Treasury is barely an investment grade bond issuer, whose long-term debt rating should be BBB minus. Continue reading →

Georgia Power’s Vogtle 3 nuclear power station went into full operation this month, the first new U.S. nuclear station in 30 years. However, its cost, together with its twin Vogtle 4 has ballooned from $14 billion to $30 billion, with a six-year delay in completion due to innumerable harassing lawsuits from environmentalists and others. It is now believed that Vogtles 3 and 4 may be the last conventional nuclear power stations in the United States, despite the government’s approval for this admirably carbon-free technology. This sad saga is just another of the innumerable costs imposed on us all by uncontrolled lawfare from left-wing interest groups. It is time to root out this abomination; the only question is how best to do so. Continue reading →