Peter's Blog

Inflation: Savior of the Rich

Whenever someone puts forward an idea for shrinking the federal budget, one of the first objections is that it will harm the poorest citizens most. Welfare spending, and other means of support are a massive part of the government budget, yet it doesn’t take a lot of insight to see that the government gives even […]

The Cantillon Effect Explained: Why Inflation Helps the State at Your Expense

The Cantillon Effect, named after 18th-century economist Richard Cantillon, describes the way newly created money flows through an economy, affecting different sectors and social classes unevenly. When a central bank like the Federal Reserve injects new money into the economy—often through measures like quantitative easing or low interest rates—this money doesn’t distribute itself evenly. Instead, […]

China Doesn’t Pay Tariffs, You Do

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the Oval Office, his proposed trade policies have reignited concerns about the economic impact of tariffs on American consumers. Trump has vowed to impose sweeping tariffs of up to 20% on all imports and a staggering 60% on Chinese goods. While he claims these measures will stimulate […]

The Free Market Prescription for Soaring Healthcare Costs

America’s healthcare system is at a crossroads. Despite repeated promises from elected officials to rein in costs, healthcare spending in the United States continues to increase at an alarming rate. In 2022, the U.S. devoted 17.3% of its GDP to health expenditures, nearly 40% more than Germany, the next highest-spending G-7 country. This excessive spending […]

Is the Fed Public or Private? It’s the Worst of Both Worlds

While it was once verboten to imply that the Fed is anywhere near being a private for-profit corporation, and doing so would immediately (and absurdly) cause you to be labeled some kind of whacko conspiracist, even the Fed itself has been forced to admit that it is, at least in part, a cartel of private […]

The Market Solution to Restore Information Integrity

In a world where all it takes is a single click to spread falsehoods, our ability to trust the information that underpins our democracy has reached a dangerously low point.

North Korea Is Involved Now, Too

A new army is marching for the front lines of the Ukraine war. Though they are dressed in Russian uniforms, these soldiers are half a world away from their homes. Five thousand miles from their position, in Pyongyang, North Korea, a dictator is directing their movements, ordering his men into a conflict that is now […]

The Dangerous Redundancy

“The Fed’s modern statutory mandate, as described in the 1977 amendment to the Federal Reserve Act, is to promote maximum employment and stable prices.” These two requirements are commonly known as the dual mandate. These two requirements have arisen from the unique power that the US Fed has in comparison to most other central banks. […]

The White House is Haunted by the Ghosts of Bankers

The halls of power are spooky indeed, for every new president enters a White House occupied for over a century by the ghoulish apparitions of the Federal Reserve. This unnerving reality is manifested in every administration, as bankers both past and present manipulate reality with the spells of interest rates, sprinkling the same old hemlock […]

That Which Cannot be Taught

While the upcoming election has people discussing policy, and economic policy in particular, we rarely ask the question of whether we need economic policy in general. I’m being facetious here, however, the reach of economic policy that we employ and are attempting to enact in the future must be questioned. Rather than questioning any specific […]