Peter's Blog

Commentators have labeled the divide between soaring asset prices and stagnant wages the “K-shaped economy,” but slapping a name on the pattern is not the same as explaining it. The real driver is the Cantillon effect: new money enters the economy through the banking system first, inflating the assets held disproportionately by the wealthy while […]

The Fed’s supposed independence from the Treasury has always been more rhetoric than reality, and recent friction between Treasury Secretary Bessent and the Fed over currency intervention shows how that rhetoric bends whenever cooperation is convenient. The claimed separation lets both institutions share credit when policy succeeds and deflect blame onto each other when it […]

Canada’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 3.0% year over year in July 2026, accelerating from June’s 2.8% increase and raising questions about official assessments that inflation has been successfully contained. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.5% before seasonal adjustment, or 0.3% after adjustment, with prices continuing to rise despite years of supposed monetary tightening. […]

The Fed insists that a stable price level is the mark of a healthy economy, but stability in the headline number tells us nothing about the money supply distortions happening underneath it. Chasing a two percent target still requires manipulating interest rates and credit creation, and it is precisely that manipulation, not the price index, […]

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton held fundamentally different beliefs about the relationship between Federal and local government. Jefferson held that the local government was the primary building block of the nation and that the federal government had the responsibility to protect rights and deal with administrative tasks such as defense and trade that would be […]

The dramatic heart of the play, Merchant of Venice, centers around a deal that turns a bad financial decision into a matter much more serious than money. In a situation where the titular merchant, Antonio, seeks to help out a friend in a time of social need, Shylock the moneylender gives him a loan of […]

The role of the market as a creator and processor of information is central to Austrian economics. Prices should reflect the collective evaluation of everyone in the market as they utilize their own constrained resources. While the Austrian theory holds the market to be an important creator of information, it does provides a compelling answer […]

Alan Greenspan served as Federal Reserve Chairman for nearly two decades, presiding over the US economy during a period of significant growth and turmoil. While often portrayed as a stalwart defender of free markets, a closer examination of his career reveals a more complex picture. Greenspan’s ability to adapt his views and rhetoric to suit […]

The AI bubble has become a frequent fixture in the financial news cycle as pundits and institutions express their fear that, when it pops, it could drag the global economy into crisis. Central bankers and institutions like the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) are sounding alarms about debt-fueled AI investments, overexuberance, fragile funding structures, and […]

As Kevin Warsh takes over as Fed chair, his stated preference for narrower, trimmed inflation measures is drawing scrutiny, and for good reason. Though it is technically correct that government-driven price hikes from wars, lockdowns, and years of interventionist policy are not “inflation” in the strict monetary sense, Warsh’s push to exclude them from the […]