New Year’s resolutions don’t work. According to US News, 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions don’t live to see the light of day by the second week of February. With just eight percent of resolution-makers actually following through, it’s clear that the odds are not in your favor if you choose to join the fad….
As reported by Dion Rabouin at Axios, an unprecedented shift toward gold has been led by the financial authorities of the world in what appears to be a move away from the US dollar. The World Gold Council reported that central banks bought a historic high of 374.1 tons of gold this year. While this…
By Jeffrey A. Tucker Facebook’s Libra – a stablecoin that could offer a serious challenge to the money and banking status quo – will likely be very good for mainstream acceptance of blockchain technology as an infrastructure of a global privately produced currency. It could become a genuine challenge to the whole idea of nation-state money as…
By Jeffrey A. Tucker Facebook changed the way we communicate, interact, and gather information. You don’t have to love all the results. But the reality of the shift in our lives is undeniable. Will Facebook’s new initiative to create a cryptocurrency do the same for money and payment systems? Most likely no, but the creation…
Let us start with talking about bad money, by which I mean the US dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen, the Chinese renminbi, the British pound, the Swiss franc, and basically all official currencies. They all represent fiat money. The term fiat is derived from the Latin word fiat and means “so be it.” Fiat…
Last year, Bitcoin reached over $2,000 and long-term investors were ecstatic. Those that had heard of Bitcoin were kicking themselves for not listening to their libertarian friend preach about a new “blockchain” technology that could decentralize banks. This is no longer the case. Considering that only two years prior Bitcoin was at a little over…
by Ian Tartt Despite constant political activism from liberty-minded people since the ratification of the Constitution, we still have to deal with unending wars, millions of nonviolent people in prison, ever-increasing debt, money that’s almost worthless, government involvement in nearly every area of our lives, no privacy from federal agencies, a chunk of each…
LISTEN TO TLR’S LATEST PODCAST: By Phillip Stucky Failed Democratic candidate in the Georgia special election Jon Ossoff decried the rise of money in politics Tuesday before he completed the most expensive congressional race in U.S. history. Democrats raised and spent $23 million in favor of Ossoff’s bid against former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, and a combined $50…
by Ian Tartt So many modern problems, from excessively powerful corporations to the high cost of living, are blamed on the “free market”. Using that term in a negative way in front of most audiences will generate applause and cheers. But is that consistent with reality? Are the problems we now face the result of too much…
LISTEN TO TLR’S LATEST PODCAST: By Steve Birr An elementary school teacher in Oklahoma stole her class’ field trip money and pawned off school iPads and computers to feed her heroin addiction. Police in Sapulpa, Okla., arrested Megan Sloan, a second grade teacher, Monday for allegedly stealing from the school and families for extra cash, which she…