Links to My Newly Released Nonfiction Books: On Forgiveness, and A Law and Economics Approach to Litigation Costs

I have to share links to my two new books on Amazon--just to make it easier for you to find them!

A Law and Economics Approach to Litigation Costs: The Proportionality Test for E-Discovery Law

And

On Forgiveness

Love them or hate them, this nobody can deny: my nonfiction books are unique!

The Government is Borrowing Money to Fight Coronavirus. What Does That Mean?

The Government is Borrowing Money to Fight Coronavirus. What Does That Mean?

Russell Hasan

Where is All This Money Coming From?

The federal government is borrowing trillions of dollars to pay for the coronavirus bailout. What does that actually mean? Where does that money come from? Who pays for it? And if the government can give away $2 trillion, why don't they do so more frequently?
The best analogy is a farmer and seed stock. A farmer harvests seed. Some of the seed, he and his family eats. Some of the seed, he saves to plant a future harvest. The seed he saves? That's his seed stock.

Economics is simple, with a few basic premises. To spend money is to consume stuff. To make money is to create stuff. You pay for the stuff you consume with the stuff you create. If someone spends money to eat food, that's like eating some of the seed. The consumer's money pays for the seed. If someone invests money, that's like paying for seed stock. If someone gives you a loan, it's like they're buying seed stock for you. You pay them back from next year's harvest.
The American economy has an enormous amount of what is metaphorically seed stock. Americans invest wealth in productive activities and reap their profits in the future. For example, an investment in real estate buys food to feed the workers who are building a skyscraper set to open in five years.

When government borrows money to give to people for them to consume with no return on investment, it is taking wealth that was slated to pay for future profits, and consuming it today. You pay the workers so they can eat, but the building isn't built.

Death Now, Death Later

The government borrowing money to give to people during the age of coronavirus is as if the farmer is about to starve to death, so he eats some of his seed stock. That is the correct decision for him. He would die otherwise. But he can't eat so much of his seed stock that he doesn't have enough left to plant for next year's harvest. If he did, he would die of starvation when next year's harvest is due to be eaten.

So the government can borrow the money, and the economy can pay for it. But there is a serious, fatal risk if Trump and Pelosi borrow and spend too much. They need just the right amount: enough for us to survive the coronavirus crisis, but not so much that the economy can't pay off the debt and goes bankrupt. Everyone dies if the government does too little or too much. Theirs is a grave responsibility. I hope they get it right.

Infrastructure and Jobs

Another recent policy proposal from Trump and Pelosi is borrowing money to build infrastructure to create jobs. That is not rational. The only reason why all the jobs went away is because of the coronavirus. If the coronavirus crisis ends, the jobs will come back. They will have no reason not to come back. And if the coronavirus crisis isn't over yet, then it's the wrong time to be gathering large groups of workers for construction projects. One infected worker could spread it to all the others. So it's pointless.

With small business loans so easy to get now, that money will be invested in private business if it doesn't end up in a federal infrastructure project. To return to my farmer analogy, it just shifts which fields the seed stock gets planted in. It does not actually create more seed for anyone to eat.

This concludes my explanation of federal debt for coronavirus relief.

What is the Libertarian Party?

Today we're going to learn about the Libertarian Party! Come on! It will be fun!
Everyone knows about the USA's two party system, with the Democrats and the Republicans. Did you know that there are other political parties in the United States? Well there are! And the Libertarian Party is the largest third party in America.
Generally, Democrats are liberals and Republicans are conservatives. Members of the Libertarian Party are usually libertarians. There is no one definition of what makes a person be libertarian, but their ideas are often based on one of four thinkers: philosopher/novelist Ayn Rand, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, economist Murray Rothbard, or economist Ludwig von Mises.
Libertarians support unregulated free market capitalism. Issues they feel strongly about include: legalizing drugs, giving people the right to own guns, and cutting taxes. The Libertarian Party generally supports any policy that maximizes individual freedom and limits government intrusion.
Did you know? America is a republic, not a direct democracy, and when you vote for a president, you're really voting for your state to send an elector to the electoral college, which chooses the president. When Nixon was elected, there was a rogue elector who voted for the Libertarian Party candidate in the electoral college!
The Libertarian Party is divided into various caucuses, each of which promote different issues and a different point of view. The Anarcho-Capitalists (also called AnCaps) want anarchy. The Pragmatists Caucus wants to win elections. The Radicals Caucus wants to take extreme and shocking policy positions. And the Mises Caucus tries to promote the ideas of Mises and Rothbard within the Party.
Did you know? The Libertarian Party's first presidential candidate was John Hospers, who was not a politician but was instead a philosophy professor. He told a colleague "I'm running for president" and they said "of the American Philosophy Association?" and he replied "no, of the country!"
The Libertarian Party asks its members to take a loyalty pledge that they will never advocate for the use of violent force in society. Some members of the party disagree with requiring a pledge, but it remains to this day. Other areas of internal disagreement include immigration and abortion, which some in the Libertarian Party support and some oppose.
Did you know? The Libertarian Party is America's fastest growing and largest third political party!
As a third party, the Libertarian Party routinely does not have ballot access, and must petition and collect signatures to get on the ballot, unlike Democrats and Republicans. Despite this, many Libertarians have run for office, and dozens have won positions at the town and city level across America.
Did you know? Ron Paul, the longtime Republican Congressman from Texas, was a member of the Libertarian Party for many years, before switching to the GOP. His son Rand Paul went on to become a Republican Senator from Kentucky. The Koch Brothers, who were famous as billionaires who donated vast sums to conservative causes, also supported the Libertarian Party at one point, although they later shifted their allegiance to the GOP.
The Libertarian Party is actually a patchwork of organizations: the National Libertarian Party exists, and each of the 50 states has its own State Libertarian Party, and towns and cities can have their own Libertarian Party Affiliate. Joining one organization does not automatically sign you up for the others, so you could be a member of a state Libertarian Party but not the National Libertarian Party, or vice versa.
The Libertarian Party has an official mascot, the porcupine, to answer the donkey and elephant of the two major parties. The porcupine was chosen because it is typically non-violent but uses its spikes to defend itself if attacked.
I hope you enjoyed learning about the Libertarian Party! I'll bet you thought there are only two parties, right? Now you know better!

A New Theory of Investing

Here is a new theory of investing, inspired ny the libertarian belief that all government intervention in economics fails: try to guess where the market would have been, and then invest on that. In theory, eventually every government runs out of Other People's Money: the Fed can't drop rates below zero, there is a limit to how much money can be printed before inflation renders the currency worthless, they can only tax so much before a revolt. When the government fails, in theory your investment will make money. In an economic boom fueled by artificial manipulations, invest in a recession, or vice versa. Two objections can be raised: the government won't run out of money before you do betting against it, and your guess can only be mere conjecture with no proof in real financial data (because the "real" data comes from the Fed-manipulated economy). Both true. But for growth investors seeking a competitive edge against the efficient market, this a path--a risky path with no guarantees, but a new path, one which most other investors will shun. A government cannot create artificial prosperity forever, the only question is when the hammer will drop and on what, to correctly target your short sales and put options.

XYAB Economics: A GOLD Libertarian Analysis of Money, Trade, and Freedom

The Economics Book Your Economics Professor Doesn't Want You to Read

This book presents the XYAB theory of economics. The XYAB theory of economics takes the basic idea that people create value, people consume value, and people trade what they create in return for what they consume, and then explains how this simple principle can be applied to macroeconomics. It explores the role of money as a means for complex multi-point trades among economic actors, and why value must be created by someone in order for a benefit to be consumed, even if it is not created by the person who consumes its reciprocal. XYAB explains why "making money" means creating value, and why to spend money is to consume resources that someone else made.

XYAB is explained lucidly using the visualizations of the triangle of trade and the circular pool of value, with a combination of scholarly precision and real world wisdom that is readable and clear. Here you will see, in detail, why capitalism works, and why socialism is not a superior alternative.

Many arguments are made that you will not find in any other book, such as precisely why the government printing new money causes inflation, and how the creation of new wealth causes deflation that helps poor people in proportion to how few dollars they own. The XYAB theory illuminates complex issues of economics in a way that makes it easier to understand the libertarian defense of capitalism.

Necessary reading for any serious student of free market economics.

Learn more at http://russellhasan.com