No, Putin Didn’t Cause Inflation
The May 2022 Consumer Price Index (CPI) release was worse than virtually any forecast predicted. The year-over-year CPI came in...
Peter C. Earle
First World Problems
I was speaking in the Midwest a few weeks back, and the topic of supply chain disruptions came up. A...
The Folly of Debt Cancellation
It is now two-and-a-half months since Russia invaded Ukraine. With Russia’s failure to take Kyiv, an international flow of weapons...
A Note on the New Russian “Gold Standard”
After ten days of offering to purchase gold for a fixed number of rubles, the Russian central bank has announced...
A Tale of Two Squeezes
The biggest short squeeze I ever saw up front took place around Thanksgiving 1999. Interestingly, bad things often tend to...
Are Gold Rubles Gold or Rubles?
Exactly one hundred years ago, in March 1922, the Soviet “goods” ruble was in its final stages of collapse after...
The Hepatological Toll of NPIs Surfaces
In the early days of the pandemic, numerous detrimental side effects of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were predicted. The potential for...
$30 Trillion With Neither a Whimper or Bang
On Tuesday, February 1, 2022, the United States national debt surpassed $30 trillion for the first time. It’s the latest...
Putin, Ukraine, and Covid
One of the difficulties inherent in writing are lags. Once ideas or predictions are on paper and in the public...
Don’t Look Up: The Allegory We’ve Been Waiting For
Last weekend, between dealing with Winter Storm Izzy and a torrent of work to complete, I squeezed in a viewing...
2021 In 21 Numbers
In 2021, we saw the unwinding of a number of policies and practices put in place in 2020, as well...
Benefits of a Balanced Public Health Strategy
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, deeming the virus to be a critical issue...
