Keith Weiner talks about money and what real money (gold) is. He argues that gold can’t circulate without an interest rate so his big push is to give gold a yield. So to transition to a gold standard, Keith argues gold must have an interest rate first.  Also, many confuse the terms of speculation vs. investment and Keith makes a clear distinction between these two terms and they’re actually opposites. And should the average person invest in gold miners? All this and more answered! Don’t miss Part 2 of this in depth discussion of money with Keith Weiner!

The crisis in Venezuela continues to get worse. On January 1st 2017, $1=$3,000 Bolivars, today $1=$8,000 bolivars. The inflation keeps getting worse and experts are now projecting over 2,000% inflation in 2018!  The government keeps trying to seize more control to “fix” the economy. The insanity in Venezuela could easily be fixed if people only understood the government always makes matters worse and they never can help you!  The free market and the private sector and embracing capitalism is the only way out!

Janet Yellen is taking back some comments she made back in London two weeks ago. Janet Yellen had said she really doesn’t see another financial crisis happening in our lifetimes. Why would she say this?  She says this because she sees that government regulations can protect us. Dodd-Frank was passed as a response to the housing crisis and she really thinks this will protect us. The only way she thinks we will have another crisis is if we repeal this regulations! Yes, she’s already setting up the new narrative for the next crisis, DEREGULATION!  Which of course that’s the cause of the next crisis at all. Big government and the fed are to blame. They are always the ones that cause crisis after crisis but they will never see it.

The state of Illinois is on the verge of bankruptcy. $15 Billion in unpaid bills and no budget plan going on 3 years running. The state legislature in Illinois has worked out a budget deal that’s suppose to pull the state back from the brink but it won’t! The budget bill doesn’t reform the pension problem in a meaningful way and it’s the underfunding of state pensions that has largely led to this debt in Illinois. The future obligation to pensions in Illinois is $251 billion!  The state legislature thinks raising $5 billion in taxes by increasing the state income tax by 32% is a good idea!  When will these politicians learn?

A new study from the University of Washington has shown that Seattle’s new $15 minimum wage is actually hurting those low skilled workers that it was intended to help!  It’s amazing how people are still shocked by things like this but I guess maybe it shouldn’t be, since the average person out there is economically illiterate!  Many of the so called “experts” out there are also economically illiterate! 
A minimum wage is pricing low skilled labor out of the market entirely! If you can’t gain job experience from getting a first job, how in the heck do you climb the ladder to obtain that more skilled second job? This is just one more lesson of the government destroying the lives of those it’s intended to help. It’s a sad story indeed.

With the republicans in charge on Capitol hill, it seems we might just get some tax reform. Many republicans seem to think that if we can just cut taxes we can get the economy booming and the debt problem we have right now will be no more. This view sounds all well and good but if republicans are really thinking cutting taxes and at the same time growing the size of government will make things better, they are delusional! All government spending is taxation so therefore we need to cut the size of government in a meaningful way!  That’s the only way out of this mess!

69% of Americans admit to have less than a $1000 in the bank! Why is this? Even the retirees out there die broke. 46% of retirees die with less than $10,000 in the bank. That’s not much money when you’re not bringing in income and are relying on savings! There’s no question there’s a lot of factors that have led to the average American being broke and the payment mentality is certainly one of the many contributing factors. In the last 17 years we have seen a 4% rise in median wages and an 89% increase in home prices. So the purchasing power of our wages has gone down so the average American is poorer today! This is the result of government spending hitting record levels! The governments spends money at the detriment to the average American.

Jared Bernstein, from his new piece at the New York Times discusses what the lefts agenda should be. He makes the case that progressives must remain in waiting and be ready when it’s time to act but always be fighting. All of the agenda items he wants to see calls for more government programs, more regulations, more subsidies for the poor and he thinks this will make life better for the averages American! Has he learned nothing from LBJ’s great society in the 1960’s. This is why we free market types need to continue to learn more as much as we can and become more effective communicators because the fight will continue to go on.

Half of the cost of an electric car is from the battery packs and cost of these battery packs are projected to fall 77% by 2025!  Just back in 2010 it cost $1000 per kWh and today Tesla is doing it at a cost of $190 per kWh. So prices have already fallen significantly and will continue this trend. This is encouraging to see and this is why we don’t need to subsidize and encourage people to go “green.” When the price is right because of production prices have drastically fallen then the consumer will step up to the plate and make the transition from a conventional gasoline engine to an electric car. Isn’t the free market a beautiful thing?

Many conservatives and supply siders seem to think we can grow out of massive debt problems but that is not the case. Even if we achieved economic growth of 3% instead of our current average since 2010 at 2% that will cut the deficit by $3 Trillion over the next decade. That sounds all nice but we will still be adding another $9 Trillion to the debt over that same decade! Entitlements need to be addressed if we want to get serious about our debt issues. Unfortunately for us, the politicians out there will take the easy way out by destroying the value of the currency via inflation.