The Federal Reserve opted to stay the course this week after meeting for the first time since Trump took office. The real question is whether 2017 will be the year they begin to normalize their balance sheet. While the Dow jumped over the 20,000 mark again on Friday, the Fed’s continued inaction and continually unimpressive GDP numbers paint a bleaker picture than the narrative we’re being sold. Meanwhile, the attempts to prop up America’s housing market continue to fail as homeownership numbers are the lowest they’ve been since 1965.

The Trump bump may soon be replaced with a more bitter reality.

On Mises Weekends, Jeff was joined by Allen Mendenhall, Mises Associated Scholar and Director of the Blackstone and Burke Center, to discuss Trump’s selection of Neil Gorsuch. Is he an activist, an authoritarian, an originalist, or a positivist? Is he too cozy with federal power, or does he show a libertarian Coloradan streak? Jeff and Allen look over his record and what libertarians should expect from the next Supreme Court Justice.

Register today for a free three-lecture course with Professor Peter Klein competition and monopoly from an Austrian perspective. Starting next Thursday (Feb. 9), Dr. Klein will dive into topics such as business strategy, antitrust, innovation, environmental regulation and more.

And in case you missed any of them, here are the articles featured this week on the Mises Wire:

• Why Those Student Loans Aren’t Getting Paid Off by Ryan McMaken
• Tightening the Money Supply will Inevitably Lead to a Bust by Frank Shostak
• Reality vs. The “Recovery” Narrative by C. Jay Engel
• Will “Big Data” Make a Centrally Planned Economy Possible? by Xiong Yue
• Taking Off Our Economic Blinders by Gary Galles
• The Fed Does Nothing by C. Jay Engel
• 2016’s Homeownership Rate Was the Lowest since 1965 by Ryan McMaken
• January’s Top Ten Most-Read Articles
• Wealth Isn’t Just Measured in Money — It’s Measured in Choices by Jonathan Newman
• Will this Finally Be the Year the Fed Cuts its Balance Sheet? by C. Jay Engel
• Trump is Wrong on H1-B Visas by Tho Bishop
• Make Every State a Sanctuary State by Ryan McMaken
• A Better Solution Than Trump’s Border Wall by Ron Paul
• The Right to Own and Bear Switchblades by Ryan McMaken
• A Heartless “Solution” to the Heroin Epidemic by Mark Thornton
• Should Cash be Abolished? by Frank Shostak
• Advertisers Aren’t As Powerful As We Think by Ryan McMaken

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