The new Incrementum Chartbook – Should Recessions be Feared and Avoided?

Back in 1969, a monograph by Murray Rothbard was published as a small booklet. Its title was “Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure” (readers unfamiliar with the essay can download the pdf version below). The booklet achieved enormous circulation at the time and remains a timeless, trenchant and rigorous analysis of the essence of the business cycle accessible to everyone.

A photograph showing a man leaning against a wall next to an empty shopfront during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Photo credit: Archive Holdings Inc.

A towering intellect, as gifted as an economist as he was as a historian and political and ethical philosopher, Murray Rothbard never lost sight of Ludwig von Mises’ famous admonition:

“Economics must not be relegated to classrooms an statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of man’s human existence.”

We may leave physics and chemistry to experts, but economics is a different matter. Every citizen should at least acquire passing knowledge of economic theory, so as to avoid being bamboozled by ideologues, politicians and their empty promises.

Unfortunately, today most of the economics profession itself has been bought off by the technocratic ruling eliteand its central planning agencies. But the powers-that-be have underestimated the internet. Today it is possible for people to access information that has been repressed by the mainstream for decades. The intellectual heirs of Mises and Rothbard can once again make themselves heard.

The new Incrementum chart book (which can be downloaded below) looks at the growing probability of a US recession and asks: how can we recognize whether a recession is likely well ahead of the belated official acknowledgments? Should we actually fear a recession? What, if anything should be done about it? And how can investors safely navigate it?