Steve H. Hanke is a Senior Contributing Columnist at Fortune and a Professor of Applied Economics at The Johns Hopkins University. From 1995 to 1996, he was an economic advisor to President Rafael Caldera and is presently Special Adviser on Economic, Monetary, and Energy Affairs in the office of Congressman Antonio Ecarri at the National
Donald Trump’s portrait has made its way on to a US coin – the latest move by the president to put his personal stamp on American institutions. On Wednesday, the US Mint launched the $1 (£0.74) coin with a portrait of Trump alongside the words “Liberty” and “In God We Trust”, to celebrate America’s 250th
Steve Hanke earned the moniker “Money Doctor” after advising governments across the globe on how to use currencies to get inflation under control. The professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University is now helping Venezuela and has been named a special advisor to the country’s National Assembly. He told Fortune’s Shawn Tully that his
Bitcoin has found some relief after months of selling pressure. On Wednesday, the cryptocurrency jumped nearly 6% to over $69,000, reclaiming a level it had not touched since early June. The jump came right after the Treasury Department announced that it would double purchases of older long-term government bonds. “The market read this as a
The first U.S.-Japan joint intervention in three decades aimed at boosting the yen has come and gone without doing much to ease anxiety in currency markets. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s notepad suggested the U.S. bought $5 billion-$10 billion worth of yen, while Japan’s move topped $50 billion. The exchange rate initially strengthened to about 157 yen per
The government’s near-$40 trillion national debt is now costing the Treasury more than $3 billion a day in service payments, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). In its August budget update, the CBO reported that net interest on public debt totaled $963 billion between October 2025 (when the fiscal year
