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“Although unemployment rose in the wake of the record-setting stock market crash of 1929, the unemployment rate peaked at 9 percent two months after the crash, and then began a trend generally downward, falling to 6.3 percent in June 1930. Unemployment never reached 10 percent for any of the 12 months following the stock market crash of 1929. But, after a series of major and unprecedented government interventions, the unemployment rate soared over 20 percent for 35 consecutive months. — Basic Economics by #ThomasSowell https://a.co/3NOvAxt

“Since budgets are not records of what has already happened, but projections of what is supposed to happen in the future, everything depends on what assumptions are made—and by whom. While the Congressional Budget Office issues projections of what future costs and payments are expected to be, the assumptions from which they derive these projections are provided by Congress. If Congress assumes an unrealistically high rate of economic growth, and therefore a far higher intake of tax revenues, the Congressional Budget Office is required to make its projections of future budget deficits or surpluses based on Congress’ assumptions, whether those assumptions are realistic or unrealistic. The media or the public may treat the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates as the product of a non-partisan group of economists and statisticians, but the assumptions provided by politicians are what ultimately determines the end results.” — Basic Economics by #ThomasSowell

“As far back as 1933, John Maynard Keynes observed that “taxation may be so high as to defeat its object,” and that, “given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance, than an increase, of balancing the Budget.” — Basic Economics by #ThomasSowell

“Dissenters and critics of Keynesian policies have argued that markets can restore employment better through the normal adjustment processes than government intervention can. But neither Keynesian economists nor economists of the rival Chicago School represented by Milton Friedman have advocated the kind of ad hoc government interventions in markets actually followed by both the Republican administration of Herbert Hoover and the Democratic administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression of the 1930s.” — Basic Economics by #ThomasSowell https://a.co/1y7KWo5

“Government spending may also go up automatically when farmers produce such a bumper crop that it cannot all be sold at the prices guaranteed under agricultural subsidy laws, and so the government is legally obligated to buy the surplus. Unemployment compensation and agricultural subsidies are just two of a whole spectrum of “entitlement” programs whose spending is beyond the control of any given administration, once these programs have been enacted into law. Only repeal of existing entitlement legislation can stop the spending—and that means offending all the existing beneficiaries of such legislation, who may be more numerous than those whose support made that legislation possible in the first place. In short, although government spending and the annual deficits and accumulated national debts which often result from that spending are often blamed on those officials who happen to be in charge of the government at a given time, much of the spending is not at their discretion but is mandated by pre-existing laws. In the U.S. budget for fiscal year 2008, for example, even the military budget for a country currently at war was exceeded by non-discretionary spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.{” — Basic Economics by #ThomasSowell https://a.co/4eEBSQd

“Meanwhile, indications that investors are growing increasingly concerned about the U.S. fiscal and monetary picture — and are in turn assigning more risk to "risk-free" Treasury bonds — are on the rise. One such indicator is the decline in the share of Treasury bonds owned by outside investors. Between 2010 and 2020, the share of U.S. Treasury securities owned by foreign entities fell from 47% to 32%, while the share owned by the Fed more than doubled, from 9% to 22%. Put simply, foreign investors have been reducing their purchases of U.S. government debt, thereby forcing the Fed to increase its own bond purchases to make up the difference and prop up prices.” -Avik Roy is president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.

Bitcoin and the U.S. Fiscal Reckoning

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have few fans in Washington, but thanks to increasing worries over the long-term stability of the dollar, they have p...

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“Among the greatest external costs imposed in a society can be those imposed politically by legislators and officials who pay no costs whatever, while imposing billions of dollars in costs on others, in order to respond to political pressures from advocates of particular interests or ideologies.” — Basic Economics by #ThomasSowell https://a.co/fKeJ4cn

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“In Canada, not a single bank failed during the period when thousands of American banks were failing, even though the Canadian government did not provide bank deposit insurance during that era. But Canada had 10 banks with 3,000 branches from coast to coast. That spread the risks of a given bank among many locations with different economic conditions. Large American banks with numerous branches likewise seldom failed, even during the Great Depression.” — Basic Economics by #ThomasSowell https://a.co/5T9xqmm

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“The Federal Reserve is a central bank run by the government to control all the private banks. It has the power to tell the banks what fraction of their deposits must be kept in reserve, with only the remainder being allowed to be lent out. It also lends money to the banks, which the banks can then re-lend to the general public. By setting the interest rate on the money that it lends to the banks, the Federal Reserve System indirectly controls the interest rate that the banks will charge the general public. All of this has the net effect of allowing the Federal Reserve to control the total amount of money and credit in the economy as a whole, to one degree or another, thereby controlling indirectly the aggregate demand for the nation’s goods and services.” — Basic Economics by #ThomasSowell https://a.co/cclwemY