The market has selected different things as money throughout history. Some of these items have served as money in isolated places for specific periods of time — for instance, cigarettes in prisoner-of-war camps. Cigarettes continue to be a currency in prisons if allowed, but if not, according to Wikipedia, “postage stamps have become a more …

A president stands disgraced. Congress is scattering. Bureaucrats are baffled. Pundits are reaching. Industry is scared. Politicians are scrambling to do something, anything, to make it better. One political party is in meltdown and the other loving every minute of it, hoping to ride the calamity to electoral gains. The so-called Patient Protection and Affordable …

[Ed. Note: This article originally published on Jan. 24, 2013] Stocks up. Gold down. Bitcoin… waaay up. The S&P 500 busted through the 1,500 mark this morning. Stocks haven’t been this expensive since 2007… right before they got a whole lot cheaper… for a whole lot longer. Gold, meanwhile, dipped a tad. This, despite central …

Given the enormous role that the welfare-warfare state plays in American life, it is always easy for libertarians to find deprivations of liberty, such as coerced charity, drug war incarcerations, the IRS, torture, surveillance, and assassination. Infringements on fundamental rights and liberties have become such an integral part of daily life that many Americans have …

Our grandparents believed in the value of thrift, but many of their grandchildren don’t. That’s because cultural and economic values have changed dramatically over the last generations as political and media elites have convinced many Americans that saving is passe. So today, under the influence of Keynesian economists who champion government spending and high levels …

Before the housing market collapsed and the government pumped billions into the economy to save it, there was a programmer named Satoshi Nakamoto. And without much fanfare, he created an idea that’s in the process of changing the world. His idea was Bitcoin. Some background information is in order before I go any further. Think …

So Janet Yellen’s first hearing took place a few nights ago. It was fairly boring. She’s expected to sail through and become the next chairperson of the Federal Reserve. Given that the last few years of extraordinary monetary policy have achieved a miserable recovery, what’s she going to do differently? Nothing. Just more of the …

Any married couple that earns more than 400% of the federal poverty level — that is $62,040 — or a family of two earns too much for subsidies under Obamacare. But if that same couple lived together unmarried, they could earn up to $45,960 each — $91,920 total — and still be eligible for subsidies through the exchanges in New York state.

The president assures us he is not responsible for the wave of health insurance policy cancellations. The insurance companies are. OK, so where is the other side?

The saying goes that things have to get worse before they get better. But with Obamacare, things just keep getting worse — and then they get worse still. In private, even many critics of the law are at least a bit surprised by how poorly the rollout has gone. The question that many are asking …

The words of H.L. Mencken rang through my head as I listened to a certain Alabama congressman talk to 40 or 50 shivering supporters the other night: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of …

Now, this is sheer entertainment. The Chicago branch of the Federal Reserve has addressed the great monetary question of our day. A researcher has taken a detailed look at the prospects for market-based crypto-currency, with a special focus on Bitcoin. It concludes that Bitcoin is not a viable replacement for the dollar. The report includes …

Though the rollout of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges has dismayed even the law’s supporters, the problem the ACA is designed to address is real enough: Millions of Americans, even those with insurance, lack access to adequate health care. In a voluntary society, civil-sector groups would step up to provide social services, like health …

From the Tongue-in-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books Houston, TX — Police in Houston, Texas, recently charged a 10-year-old girl with aggravated sexual assault. The victim was a 4-year-old boy. The girl had been caught playing doctor with the boy. It is the second such case to be reported in Houston in only a few …

The standard version of how money came to be goes like this: First, there was barter. (A handful of nails for a pint of ale!) Then, along came various forms of money. An evolutionary derby eventually crowned gold and silver as the supreme money. And finally, credit (or debt) was born. This is the apex …

Americans are still trying to get a handle on the full extent of the government’s domestic spying activities, including the recent revelation that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting and storing the email address books of ordinary Americans using online messaging services. Many users of such services are looking to tech executives for …

It is such a kick to read the transcripts from the White House’s health care “war room” in the first days of release. What a meltdown, and you get to watch it all in real-time. I’m not trying to be cruel to the kindly despots who have wrecked so much of what worked in the …

A few months ago at a demonstration against the president of Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, a Canadian citizen made the following claim: “We don’t have guns, we are not Americans, we are civilized.” A few days before, in early July, a train of the company had run away and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing …

Can we at least agree that the American people deserve the truth? That governing ourselves requires getting accurate information from the people we elect? That their function is to represent us? And that they have no right to lie or mislead? Opposing mendacity ought to be a no-brainer. What I see instead is a mainstreaming …

Stock investors are still acting as though Janet Yellen will be good for the economy… or at least good for stock prices. Gold investors must think so too. But will she be? Yellen has no business or investment experience. Her entire career has been spent in academia and public policy institutions. She has never started …

From the Tongue-In-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books… Washington, D.C. — Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced that her committee will hold a “major review into all intelligence-collection programs.” This surprising declaration followed the revelation, through documents leaked by government whistle-blower Edward Snowden, that the NSA has been listening to …

Imagine that everyone in your community is issued a credit card with the same account number. At the end of every month, the bill is totaled and divided equally among you. Suppose that during the first month, you choose not to use the credit card, yet you receive a bill for $100. The next month, …

Obamacare certainly has made history. It has set the record for the fastest-failing Big Government program in world history. This isn’t only about a website flop; it is about the failure of government to accomplish the aims of Obamacare in general, and in a way that has profoundly touched millions of individual lives. “Train wreck” …

We live in parallel universes. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is said to have a healthy concern about deflation. McDonald’s franchisees, on the other hand, not so much. The chain of Golden Arches fame will give up its Dollar Menu after 11 years, renaming it “The Dollar Menu & More” next month. It turns out …