Minor Issues
Succinct economic commentary by Dr. Mark Thornton, senior fellow at the Mises Institute.
All episodes(56)
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Vine That Ate the South: Government Solutions vs. Market Solutions
Published Jul 4, 2026
Mark Thornton delays part three of his series on American government in favor of something lighter for the 250th: the story of kudzu, the vine that ate the South. Japanese gardeners brought it to America in 1876 as an ornamental plant. Private interest stayed limited. Then FDR's Soil Conservation Service paid farmers to blanket millions of acres with it—to fix erosion and dust bowl conditions that earlier government policies had helped create. Kudzu grew a foot a day, swallowed trees, houses, an
- StandardSummaries onlyPolitics as Power: Elites, Inflation, and the Austrian Answer
Published Jun 27, 2026
Mark Thornton opens this episode of Minor Issues by tracing how politics shifted from the classical ideal of justice and community order into a Machiavellian struggle for power, privilege, and control. He argues that modern politics is dominated by entrenched elites, special interests, propaganda networks, and a two-party system designed to keep ordinary voters alienated and powerless.On Side B, Mark joins Adrian Day and Rich Checkan for a wide-ranging discussion of inflation, debt, financial re
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Fed’s New Face, Same Old Game
Published Jun 20, 2026
Mark Thornton examines Kevin Warsh’s first Fed meeting and argues that despite the tough rhetoric, nothing fundamental has changed. The Federal Reserve still exists to keep government borrowing cheap, protect banks and Wall Street, and manage appearances while real inflation erodes household purchasing power.Mark explains why real interest rates are already low or negative, how Fed liquidity continues to fuel asset bubbles, and why AI, data centers, government debt, and stock-market leverage all
- StandardSummaries onlyWhy Politicians Lie—and How Easy Money Keeps the Boom Alive
Published Jun 13, 2026
On this episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton opens with a review of John Mearsheimer’s Why Do Politicians Lie?, focusing on strategic deception in international affairs, especially in the Middle East, Israel, Vietnam, Iraq, and America’s own constitutional history. Mark argues that political lies are not merely moral failures; they are tools for empire, war, and state expansion.On Side B, Thornton joins What The Finance to explain how runaway spending, Fed liquidity, and Austrian business cycl
- StandardSummaries onlyTaxpayers vs. Tax-Consumers: Rothbard’s Real Theory of Taxes and Spending
Published Jun 6, 2026
Mark Thornton replays his Rothbard University lecture on government spending and taxation, using Rothbard’s framework of binary intervention to overturn the standard civics-story that taxes are “the cost” of government and spending is “the benefit.” Mark argues both are economically destructive and distortionary, and that treating them as neutral is a category mistake. Drawing on John C. Calhoun’s class analysis, he distinguishes net taxpayers from net tax-consumers, explaining how political fin
- StandardSummaries onlyWhat Adam Smith Left Out of the Pin Factory
Published May 30, 2026
Mark Thornton shares his recent Rothbard University lecture on the division of labor, the concept Adam Smith made famous as chapter one of The Wealth of Nations but never fully explained. Smith described workers specializing in tasks and productivity rising, then attributed the result to an invisible hand he couldn't account for. Rothbard accounted for it: the entrepreneur decides how to organize production, the capitalist funds it, and the price system guides both. Without them, the workers in
- StandardSummaries onlyWar, Easy Money, and the Working-Class Squeeze
Published May 23, 2026
Mark Thornton replays his wide-ranging Kitco News interview with Jeremy Szafron, connecting today’s “two economies” to Ludwig von Mises’s Austrian business cycle theory. Easy money and credit inflation lift asset owners, big corporations, and government finance, while working families get the bill through higher prices and weaker real wages. They discuss late-cycle signals in tech and AI and broader corporate credit, and how war-driven energy shocks feed into a wider commodity surge. Mark also b
- StandardSummaries onlyPredicting Recession
Published May 16, 2026
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton opens with a candid assessment of his own prediction record: what he got right, what he got wrong, and why Austrian economics tells you what must come but not when. He then turns to the current landscape: every major valuation metric is flashing red, market concentration exceeds the level on the cusp of the 1987 crash, deficit spending is at World War II levels, and the Fed is injecting $40 billion a month in new liquidity. Yet Wall Street rem
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Petrodollar Cracks, the Skyscraper Stalls, and the Commodity Firestorm
Published May 9, 2026
Mark Thornton opens this episode with a strategic assessment of the war's economic fallout: not the headlines, but the second- and third-order effects that are only now becoming visible. Oil production facilities across the Gulf have been destroyed, disrupted, or shut down, and restarting them is not a matter of flipping a switch. Some older wells will need to be redrilled entirely. Meanwhile, the disruption to fertilizer production threatens the next crop season and potentially longer-term food
- StandardSummaries onlyTwo Important Graphs and Rick Rule
Published May 2, 2026
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton opens with a detailed analysis of the gold correction. Is the three-month decline a sign that inflation is over, or a temporary reallocation driven by war? The answer is in the data: the CRB commodity index continues to climb, the money supply is at an all-time high, and there is no evidence of deflation anywhere in the price structure. The inflation regime remains firmly in place, and the gold correction is a normal feature of bull markets wh
- StandardSummaries onlyChemistry 101
Published Apr 25, 2026
On this episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton shows what most economic commentary misses: the market’s intricate structure of production. Starting with a single oil-and-gas byproduct—sulfur—Mark traces how it becomes sulfuric acid, a foundational input for fertilizers, batteries, and especially metal mining. The lesson is practical: war and intervention can disrupt these unseen links, shrinking real incomes and quietly raising the cost of everything from food production to data centers, and eve
- StandardSummaries onlyMark Thornton on the “Synthetic Boom”
Published Apr 18, 2026
On this Minor Issues episode, Mark Thornton shares his recent interview with "Pinnacle Digest" host Aaron Hodnett. Mark uses Austrian business cycle theory to explain how “cheap money” distorts investment and leaves a fragile financial system that eventually has to correct. They dig into timing and market signals, what might finally expose the long-running “papered-over” boom, and how the Federal Reserve and policymakers typically respond when the cycle turns.20% off listener offer on the new in
- StandardSummaries onlyWhy War Is Pushing Gold Down and Oil Up
Published Apr 11, 2026
Mark Thornton unpacks a counterintuitive correlation: as the Persian Gulf conflict escalates, oil spikes while gold and silver slide. He explains how higher oil feeds the CPI, locks central banks out of rate cuts, and pressures precious metals through the dollar and petrodollar system, distinguishing the real monetary inflation gold tracks from the statistical indexes driving Fed decisions. Stick around for a wide-ranging Commodity Culture interview with Jesse Day on the festering world war and
- StandardSummaries onlyGold Whiplash and the Petrodollar
Published Apr 4, 2026
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton shares his interview with Charlotte McLeod of Investing News Network, unpacking the sharp swings in gold and silver since late 2025. Mark connects the selloffs to a tightening business cycle and a growing liquidity crunch, and explains how Middle East conflict and changing energy settlement patterns threaten the petrodollar narrative.Purchase a Minor Issues tumbler today! https://mises.org/MinorIssuesTumblerBe sure to follow Minor Issues at ht
- StandardSummaries onlyCentral Banks vs. Reality: Gold’s Signal in a War Economy
Published Mar 28, 2026
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton discusses the recent whiplash in precious metals: historic run-ups, sharp pullbacks, and renewed claims of manipulation. He also explains how, as war and liquidity pressures evolve, markets pivot back to credit stress, rising interest rates, and ballooning government debt. What will central banks do next?Purchase a Minor Issues tumbler today! https://mises.org/MinorIssuesTumblerBe sure to follow Minor Issues at https://Mises.org/MinorIssues
- StandardSummaries onlyWar, Gold, and the Fed’s Next Move
Published Mar 21, 2026
On this episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton replays two short interviews: one recorded with Daniela Cambone weeks before the outbreak of war in the Middle East, and another with Dunagun Kaiser recorded days ago as the conflict escalates. Mark breaks down why precious metals are unusually volatile, how war and interventionism collide with inflationary fiat regimes, and why rising interest rates and commodity prices point to a more dangerous long-run trend. He also connects the dots between the
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Theory of the Bottom 99%
Published Mar 14, 2026
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton tackles the “Austrians don’t care about the poor” smear, arguing that Austrian monetary theory is designed to explain how political elites rig the system against working people. From Cantillon’s original gold mine thought experiment to today’s Fed-driven credit expansion, Mark explains how cheap money concentrates wealth and fuels the “K-shaped” economy, while a market-based monetary system would sharply limit this dynamic and restore more dur
- StandardSummaries onlyIran War Hype, Gold, and the Fed’s Debt Bubble
Published Mar 7, 2026
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton appears on Arcadia Economics with Chris Marcus during a volatile week for gold and silver amid the escalation with Iran. They unpack the risks and “unintended consequences” of the conflict, along with what all of this means for markets, the dollar, and investor psychology. Mark closes with a hard look at the Fed-fueled, fifteen-year bubble of credit and debt, the growing stress in sovereign debt markets, and why central bankers can’t “magic aw
- StandardSummaries onlyFiat Inflationary Nightmare: How to Reform the Financial System
Published Feb 28, 2026
Fiat Inflationary NightmareOn this episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton appears on Reinvent Money with Paul Buitink for a “state of the system” conversation. Mark breaks down the US economy as an “everything bubble,” explains what’s really behind the trade deficit and the dollar’s reserve status, and grades Trump’s first-year economic agenda. He closes with a practical Austrian roadmap toward sound money: real savings, capital accumulation, and removing tax penalties on interest, dividends, and long-term gains.The origi
- StandardSummaries onlyFrom Tariffs to Gold: Reading the Regime
Published Feb 24, 2026
On this special episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton shares his recent interview with Darrell Thomas on VRIC Media. Mark explains how Keynesian ideas normalized chronic deficits and a debt-financed state. They discuss tariffs and policy volatility, how inflation has been partly masked by cheap imports, and why distorted price signals hit entrepreneurs and small businesses hardest. The conversation also covers rising interest costs, pressure for renewed yield-curve suppression, and what it all
- StandardSummaries onlyFour-Letter Economic Words
Published Feb 21, 2026
In this episode, Mark Thornton offers a practical “seven-word” framework for navigating economic life, especially when policy chaos and uncertainty make long-term planning harder. Mark connects everyday action (work, learning, planning, saving, spending, giving, and prayer) to core Austrian themes: purposeful choice, psychic profit, time preference, entrepreneurship under uncertainty, and the distortions created by inflation and debt-driven policy.Donate today to celebrate 20 years of Mises Medi
- StandardSummaries onlyMarkets, Manipulation, and Silver-Stacking
Published Feb 14, 2026
Mark Thornton sits down with Ben Mumme of Living Your Greatness for a wide-ranging, long-form conversation, starting with gold and silver’s run-up and sudden correction, zooming out to inflation, saving, and why Austrian economics matters for everyday life. Watch the original interview at https://livingyourgreatness.org/podcastOrder a Minor Issues tumbler today! https://mises.org/MinorIssuesTumblerBe sure to follow Minor Issues at https://Mises.org/MinorIssues
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Giffen Good
Published Feb 7, 2026
Has silver become a Giffen good, the famous textbook anomaly where higher prices supposedly lead to higher demand? In this episode, Mark Thornton argues the story is compelling... but wrong. Mark explains why recent surges in silver demand amid rapidly rising prices don’t overturn the law of demand. They reflect shifting demand curves as market conditions, expectations, and classifications change. The bottom line is that silver is not a paradox: it’s a timely lesson in how markets adjust while e
- StandardSummaries onlySilver Slammed as Trump Nominates New Fed Chair
Published Feb 2, 2026
In this special episode, Mark Thornton presents a timely interview with Elijah K. Johnson that underscores how quickly “melt-ups” can flip into sharp corrections. Mark frames the discussion around three themes: why investors should temper expectations after a major run-up; why political and financial elites will move aggressively to protect their interests when markets wobble; and why soaring gold and silver prices (however tempting) ultimately signal deeper economic and social distress rather t
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Division of Labor
Published Jan 31, 2026
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton explains why the modern discussion of the division of labor is distorted by bad theory and political incentives. Mark contrasts Adam Smith's view with the Austrian tradition—especially Mises’s—where the division of labor is driven and continuously reorganized by entrepreneurial judgment under uncertainty, disciplined by profit and loss. Mark also shows why technocrats and social engineers love an entrepreneur-less story of specialization, why
- StandardSummaries onlyIn the Company of Mavericks: Mark Thornton on the Austrian Comeback
Published Jan 24, 2026
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton shares an in-depth interview with Jeremy McKeown of In the Company of Mavericks on the long rivalry between Austrian and Keynesian economics, and why Austrian ideas may be gaining new traction today. They trace how Austrian economics moved from a small academic outpost to a wider public audience, touching on the Mises Institute’s role, the influence of figures like Roger Garrison and Ron Paul, and the ways online media and “alternative finance
- StandardSummaries onlyRevenge of the Skyscraper Curse
Published Jan 17, 2026
Mark Thornton revisits the Skyscraper Curse—the eerie pattern linking record-height towers to major busts—and argues the next signal is flashing for 2026. Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower has restarted and is reportedly adding floors fast, poised to surpass the world record. Mark explains why skyscraper records tend to coincide with late-cycle excess, and how to read the next 12–24 months without superstition.The Skyscraper Curse: And How Austrian Economists Predicted Every Major Economic Crisis of t
- StandardSummaries onlyHistory of Hyperinflation
Published Jan 10, 2026
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton revisits the history—and present risk—of hyperinflation. Mark explains the threshold that defines hyperinflation, why measuring prices under chaos is hard (yet still revealing), and how the social damage mirrors war: savings vaporize, capital is destroyed, and civic trust collapses. He closes with practical takeaways: why gold and silver often move first as “fire alarms” and why studying past episodes builds the psychological and analytical re
- StandardSummaries onlySilver’s Growing Pains
Published Jan 3, 2026
Mark Thornton kicks off 2026 with the new Minor Issues prediction contest (stocks vs. manure) and a hard look at the monetary-metals squeeze. Mark explains why $50 silver triggered “growing pains”: spot–futures disconnects, margin hikes, empty coin shops, and weird retail premiums. As investor demand collides with industrial stockpiling, price spikes invite political scapegoating (“hoarders!”) and intervention that backfires. Expect more meddling before genuine market adjustments can work.Enter
- StandardSummaries onlyUnderinvested Commodities, Overhyped AI: Reading 2026 the Austrian Way
Published Dec 29, 2025
Mark Thornton appears on Metals and Miners with Gary Bohm. They explore the Federal Reserve's policies, geopolitical impacts, commodity underinvestment, AI's economic role, precious metals like gold and silver, stock market valuations, and the path to prosperity through free markets. Mark shares Austrian economics perspectives on the 2026 outlook, deflation benefits, and why government intervention fails.Be sure to follow Minor Issues at https://Mises.org/MinorIssues
- StandardSummaries onlyLooking Back and Forth
Published Dec 20, 2025
The Minor Issues year-end episode: what 2025 really taught us and what 2026 may bring. Mark Thornton revisits tariffs, inflation, metals, and interest rates; recaps his Bitcoin vs. Gold contest; and explains why a steepening yield curve could arrive even as the Fed cuts short rates. Mark also maps the risks of an un-inversion and why today’s calm in CRE, private credit, and AI capex may mask fragility. Looking ahead, Mark previews the 2026 prediction contest: Stocks vs. Manure.Be sure to follow
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Boom Bust Cycle and the Federal Reserve
Published Dec 17, 2025
Mark Thornton joins Scott Horton to discuss the state of the economy, the boom-bust cycle, and why anybody—left, right, and center—who cares about the wellbeing of the working class needs to oppose the existence of the Federal Reserve.Visit the Scott Horton Show at http://scotthortonshow.comBe sure to follow Minor Issues at https://Mises.org/MinorIssues
- StandardSummaries onlyLonger, Higher for Longer
Published Dec 13, 2025
Mark Thornton argues that interest is a core price that coordinates time, investment, and growth, and that the Federal Reserve has turned it into an administered number. Mark warns the long-run trend may be turning: bigger states and debts, weaker anti-inflation ideology, and aging populations imply longer, higher for longer. What are the implications? Keep that 2% Covid-era mortgage, expect poor long-bond returns and lower real equity performance, and look for commodities to fare relatively bet
- StandardSummaries onlyEarly Innings for Gold, Late Stage for Fiat
Published Dec 10, 2025
In this special mid-week episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton joins Julia LaRoche for a wide-angle tour of the macro landscape, and why gold’s surge is a market verdict on deficits, rate manipulation, and fiat fatigue. Mark outlines the Austrian business cycle story behind today’s “everything bubble,” and explains why a more dovish Fed in 2026 won’t cure malinvestment. He also contrasts Bitcoin with commodity money and sketches a practical exit: sound money, hard budget constraints, and decent
- StandardSummaries onlyThe K-Shaped Economy
Published Dec 6, 2025
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton takes apart the media’s “K-shaped economy” cliché. He explains the divergence the Austrian way: Cantillon effects from decades of deficit spending and artificially low rates that lift asset holders and big borrowers, while eroding wages and pricing-out families. Mark shows why the usual fixes like tax tweaks and rate cuts backfire. He also lays out a real cure: deep federal spending cuts, program eliminations, market-set interest rates, and so
- StandardSummaries onlyMetals, Black Swans, and the Next Bust
Published Dec 3, 2025
In a special midweek episode of the Minor Issues podcast, Mark Thornton appears on Palisades Gold Radio with Stijn Schmitz. Mark argues that gold’s surge isn’t a fad: it’s a market verdict on runaway deficits, central-bank credibility, and fiat money itself. He also explains why manipulated rates breed booms, busts, and inequality, while sound money and decentralization restore real signals.The original episode ("Dr. Mark Thornton: Early Innings for Gold, Silver Manipulation, Black Swans & Faili
- StandardSummaries onlyContagion
Published Nov 29, 2025
Mark Thornton dissects “contagion” hype and argues it’s not a market pathology. He shows why, in a free market, failures reallocate customers, labor, and capital to better firms rather than spread panic. Contagion appears only when government links balance sheets and distorts prices. Mark traces how credit booms set up busts, and why even the Fed now sits upside-down, while homeowners are “rate-locked” and supply is frozen. The takeaway: politicians and central bankers invoke "contagion" to dema
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Seven Deadly Economic Sins
Published Nov 22, 2025
Mark Thornton traces seven headline “problems” back to one engine: monetary inflation. Drawing on Austrian insights, Mark explains how new money distorts prices and wages; why cheap credit spawns debt booms, asset bubbles, and zombie firms; how deficit finance and central banking turn war into a budget line; and why rising prices erode family formation, savings, and civic trust. He connects the dots to today’s policy mix and sketches a bottom-up remedy: hard budget constraints, sound money, and
- StandardSummaries onlyMinor Issues, Major Conversations: Mark Thornton’s Four-Interview Roundup
Published Nov 15, 2025
On this marathon episode of Minor Issues, Mark stitches together four recent interviews for a fast-moving tour of today’s economy: why gold spiked while precious metals whipsawed, how ballooning US debt and rising servicing costs tilt policy toward monetization, and what that means for inflation, markets, and families. Along the way Mark explains the Austrian lens behind his calls and why using it beats siloed, headline-driven takes.Highlights include: the recent precious metals pullback and wha
- StandardSummaries onlySilver: Manipulation or Fundamentals?
Published Nov 8, 2025
Is silver “manipulated,” or are fundamentals doing the work? Mark Thornton sifts the evidence and finds a simpler story. Big players have gamed markets before, but the long arc of silver prices reflects structural forces: the 1960s demonetization that pushed vast coin hoards into private stockpiles, decades of shifting industrial demand, and the rise of by-product mining. Add environmental compliance and hard-to-recycle “green” uses that sequester silver, and the result is stubbornly low real pr
- StandardSummaries onlyNothing Good Starts at the Top
Published Nov 1, 2025
Speaking at the recent Mises Institute Supporters Summit, Mark Thornton argues that lasting reform comes from the bottom up, not from political edict. Drawing on Hayek’s “worst get to the top” insight, Mark contrasts elite-driven prohibition with the citizen-led wave of decriminalization and legalization across states and abroad. Mark also explains the role of “salutary neglect” by local officials, the Oregon backlash as a failure of property-rights enforcement—not of liberty—and the scholarly c
- StandardSummaries onlyReading Markets the Austrian Way
Published Oct 25, 2025
Mark Thornton reviews David Howden’s data-driven guide to long-horizon investing in commodities, useful even for Austrians wary of statistics. Mark explains how the book’s method ranks assets by relative valuation, generates 10-year return forecasts, and frames risk premiums, using gold and silver as case studies. Mark highlights how a formal model can still complement Austrian fundamentals and capital-allocation thinking, and he previews an upcoming episode on silver that will build on these re
- StandardSummaries onlySilver’s $50 Moment
Published Oct 18, 2025
Mark Thornton shares a timely conversation from the Liberty & Finance podcast with Elijah K. Johnson. Mark explains why $50 silver is a psychological barrier, and how decades of tech shifts, by-product mining, and central-bank gold buying shaped today’s divergence between gold and silver. The thread tying it all together: easy money seeds malinvestment and fragility; metals hedge the fallout.Be sure to follow Minor Issues at https://Mises.org/MinorIssues
- StandardSummaries onlyMonetary Metals 101: How Gold and Silver Work in a Free Market
Published Oct 11, 2025
Mark Thornton lays the groundwork for understanding gold and silver before politics gets involved. Mark explains why monetary metals emerge from market “evolution,” how their non-consumptive use creates massive above-ground stocks, and why the same metal serves multiple markets (money vs. consumption) with one price. He explains how demand shifts trigger conservation and recycling, why new mining lags price spikes, how “near-monies” substitute when people economize on cash balances, and why any
- StandardSummaries onlyVitamins vs. Technocracy: Lessons from MK-7
Published Oct 4, 2025
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton uses vitamin K2 (MK-7) as a case study in how technocracy goes wrong, elevating cutting-edge findings and bureaucracy over experience, incentives, and real-world diets. Mark explains why K2 is linked in emerging research to bone health, arterial calcification, and even neurodegenerative conditions, and highlights a paradox: many food sources rich in K2 (beef, eggs, butter, chicken liver, European cheeses, salami) are officially discouraged, wh
- StandardSummaries onlySilver, Subsidies, and the Green Paradox
Published Sep 27, 2025
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton critiques “green” mandates through the seen–unseen lens, contrasting them with conservation grounded in property rights and price signals. He spotlights silver—vital for electronics, medicine, and water filtration, hard to recycle, and mostly a mining byproduct—now in multi-year supply deficits. Subsidies for solar and EVs accelerate silver consumption and divert it from higher-value uses into short-lived installations. Real conservation comes
- StandardSummaries onlyOn the Hyperinflation On-Ramp
Published Sep 20, 2025
Mark Thornton returns as a guest on the Liberty and Finance podcast with Dunagun Kaiser to walk through Ludwig von Mises’s three stages of inflation, and why today’s mix of towering deficits and money printing puts the US on the on-ramp to hyperinflation. Mark also connects sanctions and tariffs to global de-dollarization, explains why central banks are swapping Treasuries for gold, and breaks down his gold-to-silver trade. The conversation ranges from “black swans” to state-level sound-money mo
- StandardSummaries onlyBlack Swans, Sequestered Capital, and the Next Bust
Published Sep 13, 2025
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton argues that “black swans” aren’t root causes but announcement effects of imbalances created by the Fed’s cheap-credit booms. He highlights Ball State economist James McLure’s idea of sequestered capital—R&D, financial innovations, and opaque private assets shielded from public information—which proliferate under artificially low rates. From the Dutch Tulip Bubble and 1929 investment trusts to today’s candidates—hedge-fund private deals, AI dat
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Road to Hyperinflation
Published Sep 6, 2025
On the latest episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton takes a provocative look at America’s path toward hyperinflation. Mark walks through Mises’s three stages of inflation, contending the US is moving from complacency to active flight from cash, and he ties today’s risks to sanctions policy, BRICS efforts to bypass SWIFT with gold-leaning systems, and foreign central banks rotating from Treasuries into gold. At home, Mark sees households hedging with real estate, older savers turning to precious
- StandardSummaries onlyHans Hoppe is No Revolutionary
Published Aug 30, 2025
Is Hans-Hermann Hoppe a firebrand revolutionary, or something very different? On this episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton traces Hoppe’s American debut in 1986 and follows the controversies that later made Hoppe a lightning rod. The case here is straightforward: Hoppe isn’t a political revolutionary aiming to remake society by seizing state power; he’s a natural-rights theorist whose analysis—grounded in property, history, and Austrian economics—argues for social cooperation without a predato
- StandardSummaries onlyCharlie Kirk on Drugs: Addicted to Progressive Values?
Published Aug 23, 2025
On this episode of Minor Issues, Mark Thornton responds to Charlie Kirk’s “most controversial take” on cannabis and drug policy. Mark contrasts Kirk’s opposition to reclassification with the long history of prohibition as a Progressive project, showing how state intervention—not liberty—is responsible for urban decay, social breakdown, and the failures of drug policy. Drawing on examples from alcohol and cannabis prohibition to today’s welfare state, Mark argues that addiction is fueled less by
- StandardSummaries onlyStuck in Jackson Hole
Published Aug 16, 2025
As central bankers descend on Jackson Hole for their annual gathering, Mark Thornton explores the history, politics, and pageantry of the world’s most exclusive monetary policy conference. From its origins as a small agricultural meeting to a global elite summit shaped by Paul Volcker’s love of fly fishing, the event now serves as a stage for off-the-record conversations, coordinated strategies, and public displays of “confidence.” With the US economy facing stagflation, debt explosions, and pol
- StandardSummaries onlyCapital Consumption
Published Aug 9, 2025
What happens when a society consumes its seed corn? What is capital consumption, and why does it matter? In this episode, Mark Thornton examines how inflation, deficit spending, and distorted market signals quietly erode the productive assets that fuel economic growth. Drawing on Austrian economics and insights from investor Rick Rule, Mark explains how governments and central banks incentivize the misuse of capital, leading to stagnation, underinvestment, and long-term decline. Understanding th
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Great Precious Metal Premium Conspiracy
Published Aug 2, 2025
Why do gold and silver coins often cost more than the spot price, and why do those premiums seem to disappear when you try to sell? On this episode, Mark Thornton dives into the misunderstood world of precious metal premiums. Mark explains how market forces—not shady schemes—drive the spread between retail and wholesale prices, and why that spread has shifted dramatically in recent years. From minting costs to shifting demand between retail buyers and institutional giants, Mark unpacks what’s re
- StandardSummaries onlyInflation: True or Out of the Blue
Published Jul 26, 2025
On this episode, Mark Thornton gives a crash course on the sleight-of-hand world of inflation, how it really works, why the official story doesn’t add up, and who benefits from the illusion. Drawing on Austrian insights, Mark dissects the politically engineered cycle of government overspending, Treasury bond issuance, and Federal Reserve money creation. You’ll learn how inflation doesn’t just “happen”: it’s a deliberate policy that distorts markets, transfers wealth, and props up an elite few wh
- StandardSummaries onlyWhy Jay Powell’s Fed Will Not Cut Interest Rates
Published Jul 19, 2025
In this episode, Mark Thornton breaks down the political pressure from Trump, market demands for cheap money, and the Federal Reserve’s real fears: a collapsing dollar, rising inflation, and soaring long-term rates. Mark traces the history of interest rate manipulation, the precarious state of US debt, and why Chairman Powell may be clinging to high rates—not for the public good, but to save face before his 2026 exit. With the dollar weakening and deficits exploding, Mark explains why the next c