22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 12) (A Home Run for Krugman! )

Lesson 12 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 7 minutes and 29 seconds long.

In this lesson, Krugman hits it out of the park with sound arguments.

Krugman discusses automation and why the loss of specific jobs because of automation doesn't mean it damages the economy but in fact results in greater overall productivity.

BREAKING: OPEC Recommends Supply Cut

An Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries panel reviewing scenarios for the cartel’s meeting next week recommended cutting total output by 1.3 million barrels a day from October levels, reports The Wall Street Journal.

“According to the data we have, 1.3 million barrel a day cut would be efficient to balance the market,” said one OPEC official who attended the meeting of the Economic Commission Board.

MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE HITS ANCHORAGE

A massive earthquake has hit Anchorage, Alaska.

There is a tsunami warning for the entire West Coast of the United States.

This is a developing story. Return to this post for updates.

Update 1

Paul Volcker Gives David Stockman a Thumbs Up

David Stockman

In his new memoir, Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government, Paul Volcker writes that there were many critics of his attempt to battle price inflation by correctly slowing money supply growth, including critics in the Reagan administration.

EPJ friend David Stockman who was the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1981–1985) under President Ronald Reagan comes out as something of a hero at the time.

Volcker writes:

New Signed Canada-Mexico Trade Deal With US; Tariffs Remain in Place

President Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signed the new U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement — or USMCA — in Buenos Aires this morning at the G20 Summit.

"Let's go," all three leaders said as they sat alongside each other to sign multiple copies of the deal.

But don't for a minute think this is a free trade agreement.

Did Trump Got Bested By a Social Justice Warrior in His Trade Deal with Canada?

Chrystia Freeland 

Reports The Washington Post:

For more than a year of North American trade talks, Canada’s foreign minister faced off with a president and a White House that seemed willing to say or do anything to get a better deal.

President Trump threatened the “ruination” of Canada’s economy through auto tariffs. He slapped levies on steel and aluminum. He spewed hate over Twitter at the Canadian team.

NOT GOOD: Trump's Anti-Trade Adviser Back on G20 Guest List for Dinner with China's President

The anti-trade, China-hating, White House trade policy adviser Peter Navarro will attend a crucial dinner meeting between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires on Saturday, after he was initially left off the guest list, reports The South China Morning Post.

The New York Times reports that the inclusion of Navarro into the Trump delegation took place after US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, another trade-hater, authorized Navarro’s travel.

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 11) (Krugman as a Taxaholic)

Lesson 11 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 13 minutes and 35 seconds long.

In this lesson, Krugman proves himself to be a taxaholic to the degree that he stumbles around in the lesson and doesn't seem to realize his own obvious pro-tax incoherence.

The Humility Lacking Nancy Pelosi

A Don Boudreaux letter to Nancy Pelosi.

Ms. Pelosi:

As the House Democratic Caucus was voting today to support your candidacy to become the next Speaker of the House, you declared that you will “go forward with confidence and humility.” I don’t question your confidence; I’m confident that you overflow with it. But I guffaw at your posing as person of humility. Here are only some of my reasons:

Will Cryptos Save the World?

Viresh Amin emails:

Hi Robert,

Now that the hype is over for the most part on Blockchain / Bitcoin, I do have a question for you.

Kellyanne Conway, Richard Ebeling and The Imperial Presidency

President Donald Trump

Richard Ebeling is out with another one of his usual masterful essays. This time he discusses the imperial presidency and presidential hubris.

But before we go to Ebeling's essay, we should first listen to top presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway, who as if on cue to introduce Ebeling's essay on presidential hubris, tells the press that President Trump "runs the country's economy":

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 10) (Gibberish)

Paul Krugman

Lesson 10 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 14 minutes and 43 seconds long.

In the first part of this lesson, Krugman discusses why inequality occurs and why it is bad.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to reproduce Krugman's arguments on the above because it was mostly gibberish, not making any sound theoretical points or facts.

And his habit of frequently appearing to just about burp while he talks throughout his lessons was even more annoying than usual during this gibberish.

BREAKING: Fed Warns A 'Particularly Large' Plunge in Market Prices is Possible

Wow, the Federal Reserve Board appears to be confirming that is set to crash the markets.

The Fed just issued an unusual warning about current market prices.

Trump Asked Aides If Janet Yellen Was Too Short to Head the Fed

Too short Yellen

President Trump believed Janet Yellen, the former chair of the Federal Reserve Board, was too short to run the central bank, according to The Washington Post.

Current and former officials told The Post that Trump “appeared hung up on Yellen’s height," asking aides and officials multiple times if they agreed that Yellen, who is 5 foot 3 inches, was tall enough to be in charge of the Fed.

According to this inside the beltway paper, advisers also told Trump he shouldn’t re-nominate Yellen, and instead should have his own, new person as head.

Farm Bankruptcies Surpass Great Recession Levels in Upper Midwest: Is Trump to Blame?

An analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found that 84 farm operations in the upper Midwest filed for Chapter 12 bankruptcy from June 2017 to June 2018, reports Axios.

 The number of bankruptcies filed by these farm operations is double the total from 2014 and even surpassed the mark hit in 2010 at the peak of the Great Recession. Current price levels and trends suggest the number will continue to rise, according to the report.

President Donald Trump v. Prof. Walter Block on Who to Blame for Plant Closings and Job Cuts by General Motors

Donald Trump

President Trump placed responsibility for this week’s announcement of General Motors plant closures and layoffs on the Federal Reserve, during an interview, reports The Washington Post.

GM has announced that it will close 5 plants and eliminate 14,000 jobs.

But Dr. Walter E. Block, Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics at Loyola University New Orleans, has a different theory.

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 9) (How to Justify Hating the Rich)

Lesson 9 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 11 minutes and 33 seconds long.

In this lesson, Krugman teaches how to justify hating the rich and those who are top achievers.

He first starts out by claiming that the baby boomers years were much better because of less inequality. But he never, despite spending the entire lesson talking about inequality, discusses in detail the nature of inequality and the types of inequality.

Trump May Back Into a Sound Economic Policy (Will Kudlow Be Able to Keep a Straight Face)

Larry Kudlow

On news that General Motors is shutting five plants and cutting 14, 000 jobs, President Trump is furious.

He is so furious that he may actually back into some sound policy.

In the clip below, Trump's top economic adviser reports that Trump is considering cutting electric car subsidies to GM.

Trump Issues New China Tariff Threat

President Donald Trump has issued a new threat to slap tariffs on $267 billion of Chinese imports, just days before a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit on December 1 in Buenos Aires.

During an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Trump said. “If we don’t make a deal, then I’m going to put the $267 billion additional on.”

Trump Explodes: GM Eliminates 14,000 Jobs, Closes 5 Plants

General Motors announced Monday that it planned to idle five factories in North America and cut roughly 14,000 jobs in a bid to trim costs.

This is simply a business decision. Obviously, the costs involved in running the five factories and employing the 14,000 jobs could not be done profitably.

Margaret Thatcher Officially Named as Contender...

Magaret Thatcher

...for the face of England's upcoming new £50 note.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney announced at the Science Museum in London that the new polymer £50 note will celebrate UK achievement in science.Nut

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 8) (Boring, Almost Fell Asleep)

Lesson 8 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 9 minutes and 2 seconds long.

It is by far Krugman's most boring lesson.

Bitcoin Breaks Below $4,000 and Bitcoin Hysteria Before the Crash

Yesterday, Bitcoin broke under $4,000 to the $3,700 range. It is down 40% for the month, 62% on the year and is down 81% from its all-time high of $19.783 reached in December of last year.

I think it is now time to point to the YouTube I did almost exactly one year ago, on November 29, 2017 just weeks before Bitcoin peaked in price. The comment section to the video is a lesson in bubble phase hysteria.

The Difference Between What is Going on Between Privately-Owned Forests and Government-Owned Forests, and the California Wildfires

By Richard A. Epstein

Over the past several weeks, California has been gripped by two of the most deadly forest fires in its history: the Camp Fire north of Sacramento and the Woolsey Fire in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. At last count, the toll of this disaster includes 76 dead and hundreds missing, the destruction of nearly 10,000 homes, and unhealthy air quality—now called the “dirtiest in the world”—throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, leading to the postponement of many local events, including moving the “Big Game” between Cal and Stanford from November 17 to December 1.

H.R. McMaster Told Trump Off For Asking Iraqi Prime Minister About US Taking Iraqi Oil

Trump and McMaster

Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster once rebuked President Trump after he raised the possibility of taking Iraq's oil to compensate the U.S. for the money it has spent on the country's war in a phone call with Iraq's then-Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, according to a report.

What Government Scientists Are Doing to Make Their Insane Extreme Climate Forecasts

The below clip is the best I have seen as far as a discussion of government climate models.

In the clip, Dr. Patrick Michaels, director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, discusses the parameterization of the models, the cherry-picking that goes on and the skewed incentives.

And then, for good measure, he explains the additional cherry-picking going on to justify the claim that storms such as hurricanes are getting more intense.

It Is Time to Admit That Tucker Carlson is Just Bad When It Comes to Economics?

In the clip below, Tucker Carlson admits that he would ban automated driving trucks, even if they were safe, to "save" the jobs of truck drivers because "We can't throw the drivers out of work... because of the social costs?"

First Hayek, Mises and Rothbard are rolling over in their graves at the very idea of the concept of "social cost."

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 7) (Krugman Lies With Statistics)

Lesson 7 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 8 minutes and 53 seconds long.

In this class, Krugman just outright lies with statistics.

This is his most deceitful video so far.

BLOWBACK: French Protest Against "Climate Change" Fuel Tax; Tear Gas Used

Police fired tear gas and used a water cannon to disperse some 8,000 protesters gathered in Paris Saturday for a second weekend of “yellow vest” protests, reports France24.

Protesters converged on the Champs-Elysées, where they faced off against police deployed to prevent them from reaching the nearby Elysée presidential palace.

How Bitcoin Matches Up With the Greatest Bubbles in History

(Chart via Bloomberg)

-RW 

Is Trump About to Axe Treasury Secretary Mnuchin?

UPDATE BELOW: Trump in furious response

President Trump has expressed dissatisfaction with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, blaming him for the appointment of a Federal Reserve chairman who has been raising interest rates, reports The Wall Street Journal.

According to WSJ, in conversations with advisers in recent weeks, Trump also has voiced displeasure with Mnuchin over the turbulent stock market and the Treasury chief’s skepticism toward the sort of punitive trade actions the White House has taken against China.

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 6) (A Disjointed Lesson)

Paul Krugman

Lesson 6 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 14 minutes and 25 seconds long.

In this class, he discusses banking and also bubbles and business cycles. It is a disjointed lesson.

He discusses bank runs as though they are an inevitable part of the structure of banking, never differentiating between a fractional reserve system (which is subject to bank runs) and a 100%  reserve bank system.

It is really quite remarkable to witness the lack of depth in Krugman's thinking about the banking system.

Why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Won't Be the One to Finally Make Socialism Work

By William L. Anderson

I receive near-daily emails from The Nation, the hard-left publication that never acknowledged a communist atrocity nor has recognized any socialist failure. From what I can tell, the editors are downright giddy, as they see socialism in the USA on the rise, with the bookends of the elderly Bernie Sanders on one side and the camera-friendly Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the other, both ably promoting socialism to a new generation of people ready to overthrow the alleged chains of capitalism.

Manny Klausner On the Brilliant Mises and Rothbard

Manny Klausner

Nick Gillespie on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Reason magazine recently interviewed Manny Klausner, who was a co-owner of the magazine almost from the start--close enough to be considered by most a co-founder.

The interview covered a wide swath of history concerning Klausner's time with Reason, including Klaunser's telling the story of the time Ayn Rand threatened to sue the magazine. There is also some great discussion about the history of the libertarian movement and the current state of it.

Are Marxists Motivated By Love Or Hate?

In the below video, Jordan Peterson is at his absolute best. I am tempted to call this 10 minute and 22 second clip a must watch.

In the clip, he discusses, Marxism, Post Modernism, Mao, the Cambodian Killing Fields and social constructs.

Watch it twice. You can battle socialists with this knowledge and destroy them---or make them think.

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 5) (His Worst Class Yet But One Good Joke)

Lesson 5 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 11 minutes and 45 seconds long.

It is by far the worst class so far.

He remarkably states in this video that "money is a useful fiction created by the government."

This means that Krugman has no common sense understanding of how money started and evolved and is totally clueless as to the advanced scientific discussion by Ludwig von Mises in Human Action of the regression theorem which explains how money develops.

Did Larry Kudlow Just Set Himself Up to Be Mocked for the Rest of History?

President Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow may have just uttered the words that will make him infamous.

Yup, this may put him right there with economist Irving Fisher who said just days before the great October 1929 stock market crash:

How to Buy Christmas Gifts

The below video I put out last year.

It has received very few views. However, I have received more email reaction to this video than any other I have ever put out. It really appears to have resonated with those who did watch it.

People thanked me for the video and others told me how they implemented my suggestions.

The Real Meaning of Thanksgiving: The Triumph of Capitalism over Collectivism

Richard Ebeling emails:

Dear Bob,

 Here is an article of mine on the website of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) on, “The Real Meaning of Thanksgiving: The Triumph of Capitalism over Collectivism.”

Mises Predicted the "Red Meat Tax"

By Joseph T. Salerno

Last week, a team of researchers under the auspices of the Nuffield Department of Population Health (NDPH) at Oxford University published an article in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE. The article purports to calculate “economically optimal tax levels for 149 world regions that would account for (internalize) the health costs associated with ill-health from red and processed meat consumption.”

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 4) (He denies supply and demand theory)

Paul Krugman

Lesson 4 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 9 minutes and 48 seconds long.

In this lesson, there is actually something I can agree with. Early on Krugman says, "Productivity is the source of wealth."  That nails it.

Top Council on Foreign Relations Economist Warns Economic Growth Will Start to Contract in Early 2019

Benn Steil, senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, emails a link of his recent CFR blog post, "The Fed Is Tightening More Than It Realizes."

Steil's contention is that rate hikes understate the degree of tightening the Fed has imposed over the past year. The reason is that the Fed appears to be underestimating the impact of its balance-sheet reduction operation.

Writes Steil (my emphasis):

Was Bitcoin in a Super Bubble?

With the price of Bitcoin down by approx. 78% from its all-time peak of $19,783, hit on December 17, 2017. it is a good time to consider whether Bitcoin was in a super bubble.

Last year in early December, roughly two weeks before the $19,783 price peak, I held the view that Bitcoin was in a super bubble. And so I put out a video discussing what constitutes a bubble and a super bubble and set some parameters of how to declare something a bubble or a super bubble.

Trump Calls on the Federal Reserve to Lower Interest Rates

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average down today by another 552 points, President Trump took a shot at the Federal Reserve.

"I'd like to see the Fed with a lower interest rate. I think the rate's too high. I think we have much more of a Fed problem than we have a problem with anyone else," Trump said to reporters outside the White House shortly before boarding the Presidential helicopter, Marine One, which started his journey to Florida for Thanksgiving.

Vicious Nouriel Roubini Attack On Larry Kudlow

Nouriel Roubini

Wow, I don't know what prompted this but the NYU professor goes after President Trump's Director of the National Economic Council in a manner that rarely occurs.

This is vicious.

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 3) (The Horrific Lesson)

Lesson 3 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 7 minutes and 40 seconds long.

It is 1 minute and 51 seconds shorter than Lesson 2 but on a theoretical level much greater damage is done than in yesterday's lesson.

'It’s Not True That Bernie Sanders Stayed at Hitler’s House During His Honeymoon'

Bernie Sanders

George Reisman is on attack.

He writes:

 It’s not true that Bernie Sanders stayed at Hitler’s house during his honeymoon. He stayed in the Soviet Union. Remember, Bernie is not a National Socialist; he’s an INTERnational socialist.

Bitcoin Drops Below $5,000

The Bitcoin crash continues.

Just last week, Bitcoin broke below $6,000 now it is trading below $5,000 with the last price (see chart below) at $4989.

Since its peak in late December 2017 of  $19, 539, the price of Bitcoin is down $15,440 or 79%.

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 2) (It Got Worse)

 Paul Krugman

Lesson 2 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 9 minutes and 31 seconds long.

In this lesson, he emphasizes that economics is about real people rather than robotic agents.

He even disses grad students who come up with elaborate mathematical models that refer to economic agents rather than people.

Some Very Odd Thinking By Salesforce Founder Marc Benioff

Marc Benioff 

By Robert Wenzel

Salesforce founder Marc Benioff was recently interviewed by Kara Swisher for Recode.

During the interview, he apparently told Swisher, "You are either for the homeless or you're for yourself. ...For me it was binary," when he was defending San Francisco's Prop C.