Peter's Blog

Even when we know what is right, we consistently fail to do it. The human mind is incredibly prepared to diverge from responsibility. The ability to recognize the world as it is, and hold the conclusions that one must necessarily draw from it, while not acting on those conclusions is both comfortable and easy. Because […]

As Washington continues piling up debt, deficits, and monetary intervention, meaningful reform is increasingly unlikely to come from the federal level, pushing the real action down to the states. Florida offers an imperfect but instructive model of lower taxation, spending restraint, and sound money, including its move to recognize gold and silver as legal tender, […]

Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is celebrated for the unprecedented interventions that supposedly saved the economy from depression after the 2008 financial meltdown, expanding the Fed’s role well beyond its traditional purchase of short-term treasury bills into buying private stocks, mortgage securities, and long-term government debt. Rather than allowing the malinvestments of the housing boom […]

Monetary authorities increasingly argue for eliminating physical cash altogether, citing tax evasion, the shadow economy, and the instability caused when people run for cash during a crisis. But money is a commodity that emerged through voluntary market selection, not something a central bank can conjure by decree, and abolishing cash strikes at the medium of […]

Mainstream economists insist that recessions can only be cured by increasing government spending, a doctrine popularized by Keynes and his followers and defended even by prominent economists who have only half-jokingly suggested manufacturing crises to justify it. Murray Rothbard’s Austrian analysis turns this on its head, showing that government intervention prolongs downturns by further distorting […]

California’s proposed billionaire tax promises to raise $100 billion by taxing the state’s wealthiest residents, but Sweden and Colombia already ran this experiment for decades, and both saw wealth taxes chronically underperform while accelerating capital flight. Confirmed departures from California billionaires like Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Peter Thiel have already erased a large share […]

Politicians consistently defend business regulation as a shield for consumers, but the airline, healthcare, and banking industries show how these rules actually protect incumbent firms from real competition. The result is a state-enforced cartel that limits market entry, keeps service quality at the regulatory floor rather than pushing it higher, and leaves consumers footing the […]

Money Supply is a very important indicator. It helps show how tight or loose current monetary conditions are regardless of what the Fed is doing with interest rates. Even if the Fed is tight, if Money Supply is increasing, it has an inflationary effect. One key metric shown below is the “Wenzel” 13-week annualized money […]

The unique dangers of artificial intelligence are often used to argue that development should be taken out of the hands of profit-driven private actors. The government is presented as a force for good that can develop AI responsibly for the common good. While this line of reasoning can soothe the minds of well-meaning citizens, it […]

Modern institutions have embraced the belief that more data, more regulation, and more centralized coordination will always produce better outcomes, but that assumption is increasingly running into its own limits. As bureaucracies drown in information they cannot meaningfully interpret, the very mechanisms built to improve performance begin producing the opposite result, a phenomenon that undermines […]