Peter's Blog

Fed Gov Waller Sees “Transitory” Landmines Everywhere 

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller traveled to Auburn University on April 17th bearing a familiar message: inflation may look tame if you squint, but another surprise could be lurking around the corner. While he highlighted “underlying inflation…running close to 2 percent,” recent data—from Brent crude’s surge to gasoline topping $4.10 a gallon—tells a less tranquil […]

The Entrepreneurial Spirit of 2026

I doubt that I’m the only one who feels that something different is happening in the entrepreneurial world. While the emergence of our current world-defining tech companies in the 80s and 90s looked very different from the origin of the industrial giants of the 20th century, they still shared some recurring themes at their advent. […]

The Two-Tiered Damage of the Iran War

Do not let them get away with the war in Iran. The stock market is up, but the war’s consequences cannot be wiped away cleanly with financial success. Politicians have long avoided accountability for any sort of foreign involvement. Trump led all of his voters into believing that he wanted an end to foreign wars […]

Consumer Sentiment Has Never Been This Bad

Consumer sentiment has hit an all-time low in America as the promises of Trumpenomics like a flood of tariff wealth, slashed income taxes, and lower prices are washed away by the tides of war, low growth, bad math, and money printing. Politicians want to be good at math when it serves them, and terrible at […]

The Abolition of Traffic

Government control of roads and public transit was promised to guarantee accessibility, efficiency, and high-quality service. The time it takes most people who want a house or an affordable apartment to get to work is a clear sign that this has failed. While it would be easy to go into the theoretical problems and issues […]

We Need More Government… Clarifying Property Right

Many forms of regulation have an origin story rooted in a historical example of a business damaging everyone around for quick gain. These examples of negative externalities show something that can apparently only be fixed by regulation. If a business is allowed freedom and they used it to damage the common good, the government that […]

The Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act Robs Peter to Pay Paul

If you listen to politicians in Washington, the Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act proposed by Virginia Representative Don Beyer sounds like a gift to the middle class. But by decreasing taxes for some by increasing them for others, it only robs Peter to pay Paul. A tax decrease that is financed by a simultaneous tax […]

Disruptors of the State’s Educational Monopoly

Since the advent of public education, the state has had a monopoly on accessible K-12 education. However, the monopolistic nature of their situation let them to seek rent in several ways that greatly damaged their ability to sustain such a powerful role. Although private schools served as a competitor for more wealthy students, for most […]

The Illusion of Transparency in 21st Century Equities

Warren Buffett solidly trounced the S&P 500 for the first 35 years of his career, and then something terrible happened to him. While in the past, he was able to receive stock tips ahead of time, in 2000 the US government began to require uniform disclosure patterns for earnings information. Buffet had been merely arbitraging […]

Price Synergies of Gold and Oil Muddy the Water

Gold and oil price are connected uniquely through several different mechanisms. The recent conflict in Iran has created a massive international oil shortage and thrown the FX markets and gold prices around dramatically. While international tensions are often good for the gold market, in this situation, the price of gold experienced some dramatic downward price […]