Peter's Blog

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 US tax system is often praised as a means of funding essential government services and redistributing wealth. A deeper analysis reveals that it is primarily driven by envy and resentment rather than a genuine concern for the common good. By pitting different groups against each other, the tax code fuels social division and undermines […]

Nearly all read distributive forms of government try to find some way to give moral justification for their poor economic choices. They assume that it will be easier for people to accept wealth redistribution if they can somehow prove that the wealthy are morally inferior. While like any group of people the wealthy have their […]

China’s economic rise in recent decades has been nothing short of remarkable. Many attribute this success to the country’s ambitious industrial policy, which involves central planning and heavy government intervention in the economy. However, a closer look reveals that this approach leads to inefficiency and distortions that ultimately undermine economic progress. The following article was […]

Americans are increasingly anxious about artificial intelligence and what it means for their jobs, and politicians on both sides of the Pacific have begun promising to manage the transition. But the real question isn’t whether AI will displace certain jobs (that kind of creative destruction is the normal engine of economic progress); it’s whether the […]

Going from zero to one is creating something that is fundamentally new. While creating another software-as-a-service company could be extremely lucrative, it is something fundamentally different from going zero to one, as it is more like going from 28,332 to 28,333. Business ideas that already exist can be optimized and maximized by clever people but […]

The current study of economics in an academic setting is extremely overrun by empiricists. Empiricism is a method of study that involves primarily driving conclusions from what can be observed rather than first principles. Empiricism links the validity of every idea back to observable points of evidence that can be used to support it. While […]

In popular culture, entrepreneurs are often praised and speculators are to be shamed. They are seen as fundamentally different classes of individuals. An entrepreneur is described as someone who creates something and actually cares about their mission. A speculator seen as someone who shifts around between different industries for only the goal of financial reward. […]

Most Americans are familiar with the Keynesian idea that government spending and money creation can stimulate a sluggish economy by boosting demand. What those not versed in Austrian economics may not appreciate is that this framework gets the causal order exactly backwards: production must come before consumption, and genuine demand can only arise from prior […]

Defenders of big government often argue that roads, courts, and national defense prove the state is indispensable to prosperity, but this reasoning contains a fatal flaw. The state has no independent source of wealth: it first expropriates resources from private producers through taxation, then provides services with those resources, and finally points to those same […]