Post 348: Artificial Wealth and the Enduring Allure of Easy Economics

• Electric vehicle demand is a fraction of what auto manufacturers thought it would be.
  • But government involvement helped to distort expectations.
    • Ford takes a huge write-down.
• Coty is a leading cosmetics/fragrance company founded in Paris.
  • Its sales are falling, but not as fast as its share price.
    • And we take a look back at this interesting business.
      • Do you know what a flacon is?
• We revisit how Social Security is heading for insolvency in eight years unless changes are made.
  • And how back in 1983 Washington managed to put aside their differences and temporarily fix the program.
    • Because they had no choice.
• In Financial Ructions
  • We take another look at the GENIUS act.
  • And how it could be setting the stage for another massive taxpayer-funded bailout.
  • We also look at how artificially driving stock market higher via passive investing or artificially low interest rates harms economic prosperity.
• And we wrap up our book review of Where Keynes Went Wrong by Hunter Lewis.
  • We look at the irresistible allure of Keynesian sophistry.
  • And how today’s economic mess is the result of decades of widespread willingness and desire by many well-intended politicians and much of the populace to believe that the easy way out is the right way.
    • Keynes unwittingly provided the intellectual cover for this to happen.