Steven H. Hanke
Articles by Steven H. Hanke
It’s no secret that Recep Tayyip Erdogan aspires to become the sultan of Turkey. But there is one huge obstacle that might block Erdogan’s path: the Turkish lira. The lira is one of the world’s junk currencies. Indeed, with each passing...
Though they walk and quack like ducks, players in the cryptocurrency ecosystem insist that they are birds of a different feather. Both the crypto players and regulators appear to want regulation for crypto — but an apparent impasse...
For thousands of years, there has been a dominant international currency. Until August 15, 1971, when President Nixon closed the gold window and revoked the right of foreign governments to redeem their dollar assets for gold, all the...
Economic policy is subject to fads and fashions. The most recent economic-policy fad is public infrastructure. Its advocates include progressives on the “left” – like President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders – and populists on...
Productivity and economic growth continue to surprise on the downside in most countries. While there is a great deal of handwringing over the so-called productivity puzzle, little attention is given to the real elixir: freer markets and...
Secular stagnation is said to be present when economic growth is negligible or nonexistent over a considerable span of time. Today, secular stagnation has become a popular mantra of the chattering classes, particularly in the United States...
On June 23rd, the voters in the United Kingdom (UK) turned a collective thumbs-down on the European Union (EU). The Brexit advocates – the ones who had had enough of the EU’s mandates and regulations – won the day. But, this is only the...
In 2010, Brazil’s Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, coined the phrase “currency war” when he complained about the “cheap” Chinese renminbi (RMB). Mantega claimed this gave China an unfair trade advantage. As he put it to the Financial Times...
Money matters — it’s one of Milton Friedman’s maxims that I repeat often in my columns. Since the Northern Rock bank run of 2007 — the “opening shot” of the financial crisis — the money supply, broadly measured, in the United States, Great...
The rupiah is plumbing the depths it last visited in 1998 during the Asian financial crisis. The accompanying chart of the rupiah’s value against the U.S. dollar tells the tale. Although the rupiah’s recent plunge is not as dramatic...
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