Recent posts
Connecticut’s Housing Shortage Is Rooted in Government Policies
There is no shortage of experts that the government is willing to hire to gain public favor for a particular policy. For Connecticut, that expert is a man named Cameron Rifkin, a policy associate for the National Council of State Legislatures. On December 4, 2023, at a legislative roundtable discussion on housing, Mr. Rifkin spoke of the grim reality of the housing situation in Connecticut, stating, “Sixty-eight percent of renters in Connecticut...
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Janet Is Yellin’ Nonsense. Stagflation Is around the Corner
The canary in the coal mine, is the consumer in our current economic period. We can still hear it, but it is growing weaker.We clearly hear Janet Yellen telling us in a March interview that rapidly increasing credit card use by consumers is normative. Is it normative to use credit card debt to offset “transitory” inflation?America has used credit to promote a recovery. Household debt rose to 17.5 trillion in the 4th quarter 2023. Debit and Credit...
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Marx, Class Conflict, and the Ideological Fallacy
Our present cultural landscape is filled with the language of class conflict, ideology, bias (conscious or unconscious), and the politicization of everything. While there are many contributors to this, we can largely thank (or blame) Karl Marx and his theory of class consciousness and class conflict. While not necessarily following Marx in his economics, these concepts have captured the imagination of many, especially in the modern Western...
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Heightened Speculation of a BOJ Move Tomorrow did not Stop the Nikkei from Rallying or Yen from Slipping
Overview: The US dollar is trading with a mostly
softer bias against the G10 currencies. The notable exceptions are the Japanese
yen and Swiss franc. Ironically, speculation of a Bank of Japan rate hike
appears to have increased, while there is a risk that the Swiss National Bank
cuts rates this week. The Norwegian krone is the strongest of the major
currencies. The central bank meets later this week but is widely expected to
stand pat. The...
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Week Ahead: Central Banks
There has been a dramatic adjustment to US rates. The
two-year yield was near 4.40% before the US employment report on March 8 and it
reached near 4.73% before the weekend. The 25 bp surge is the largest weekly increase
since last May. For the first time in four months, the Fed funds futures strip
is no longer has at least three rate cuts discounted. The interest rate
adjustment underpinned the dollar, which rose against all the G10 currencies
last...
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The Twilight of the Antifederalists
New York was the toughest nut for the Federalists to crack. For here was one state where not only was the population overwhelmingly opposed to the Constitution, but the opposition was also in firm and determined control of the state government and the state political machinery. Here was a powerful governor, George Clinton, who would not, like Hancock and Randolph in the other critical states, yield to a sellout under pressure. Clinton had been a...
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Failing to Make the Case for Race-Based Reparations
Reconsidering Reparations by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Oxford University Press, 2022; pp. 261Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, who teaches philosophy at Georgetown University, has a very different view of justice from libertarians. We believe that justice is based on the libertarian rights of self-ownership and Lockean appropriation, expressed in laws that apply to everyone and do not discriminate between different races or classes of people.Táíwò, by contrast, is a...
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Swiss Franc at risk as inflation diverges from SNB forecasts
Swiss Franc is vulnerable as inflation data continues to undershoot official forecasts. The SNB expected inflation to average 1.9% in 2024 in its December forecast, but it currently sits at 1.2%.
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From Athens to Vienna: Understanding a System of Ethics
The Political Thought of David Hume: The Origins of Liberalism and the Modern Political Imaginationby Aaron Alexander ZubiaNotre Dame 2024; 366 pp.The central thesis of Aaron Zubia’s very scholarly book will be of interest to students of Ludwig von Mises. Zubia argues that the thought of David Hume underlies contemporary liberalism. He intends “liberalism” broadly, so that it encompasses not only twentieth-century liberalism, but classical...
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Will Oklahoma’s Legislature Embrace Sound Money? Maybe
On February 5, 2024, Oklahoma Representative Cody Maynard introduced House Bill 3027, which would eliminate all capital gains taxes on gold and silver and expand legal tender to include not only gold and silver coins issued by the US government, but other specie that an Oklahoma court rules to be within state authority to make or designate as legal tender. While the bill has yet to be debated and passed in the Oklahoma House, this could be a...
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Sebag and Natural Money
Natural orders are things that emerge on their own or reflect the true nature of how something is or was meant to be. Two of my favorite books, both of which dramatically changed my outlook on the world, are A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century (by biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein) and Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life (by economics professor Paul Seabright). Even though they deal with different subject...
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Euro’s Recovery to $1.09 Looks Vulnerable while Yen Falls to New Lows for the Week After Strong Pay Raises Confirmed
At the end of last week, the derivatives market was again pricing in nearly four Fed cuts this year, but this week's data have seen expectations re-converge with the Fed's three rate cuts signaled in December, while cutting the odds of June hike to the lowest in the more than four months.
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Zurechtkommen mit der Komplexität des Klimawandels. Eine genauere Betrachtung der wissenschaftlichen Methode und ihrer Einschränkungen
Zurechtkommen mit der Komplexität des Klimawandels. Eine genauere Betrachtung der wissenschaftlichen Methode und ihrer Einschränkungen
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Why We Don’t Need Government Funding for “Moonshots”
Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito
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Protectionism Doesn’t Decrease “Food Insecurity”; It Increases It
Achieving food security is a priority of political parties regardless of ideology. Therefore, countries work assiduously to ensure that this project is accomplished. The proactive approach to tackling the issue is admirable, but in their pursuit of food security, some countries adopt counterproductive policies. The assumption that protectionism alleviates the risks of food security is still embraced by many policymakers when there is no...
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The Michigan Verdict Is “Groundbreaking” as in Burying the Law
In convicting James Crumbley of involuntary manslaughter yesterday, a Michigan jury’s verdict was “groundbreaking,” according to CNN. While the term was meant to describe a “new direction” in the application of criminal law, perhaps it is more appropriate to think of the jury’s actions as breaking ground in an attempt to bury what is left of the criminal law this country inherited from England.That is not a good thing. For all the faults in the...
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Getting the Great Depression (Almost) Right — And Totally Wrong
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Krugman: Low Unemployment Causes Inflation, Not Monetary Expansion
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Why the Bubble Economy Isn’t the Real Economy
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A Principled View of Nations and Nationalism
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The Myth of National Defense Spending
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Covid Showed Us Who Really Rules America
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Mises Institute is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent the law allows. Tax ID# 52-1263436
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How the US Regime Subsidizes Immigration—both Legal and Illegal
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Wealth, Wisdom, and Prosperity: The Ancient Capitalist Tradition of India
In 1991, when the Indian economy was on the brink, Narasimha Rao called upon the eminent economist Dr. Manmohan Singh. What followed is well-documented: the transformation of a $300 billion economy into a $3.5 trillion economy in just three decades. This marked India’s departure from the Nehruvian model of socialist economics and its embrace of the open market system. However, it remains debatable whether India has fully embraced capitalism or...
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L’OFDF mandate un prestataire de service de base pour la RPLP
Le renouvellement et la modernisation du système pour la perception de la redevance sur le trafic des poids lourds liée aux prestations (RPLP) prennent forme. Les détenteurs de véhicules immatriculés en Suisse pourront à l’avenir choisir entre des systèmes de saisie proposés par différents prestataires.
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President Bukele Broaches Austrian Business Cycle Theory at CPAC
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador recently spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference, receiving a hero’s welcome in the wake of his re-election victory. Yet he also delivered some hard truths as part of his speech that conservatives would do well to consider.While conceding that high taxes are a problem, Bukele said the deeper problem is that Americans “pay high taxes only to uphold the illusion that you are funding the government,...
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Investigation into collapse of Credit Suisse beset by delays
In March 2023, Credit Suisse collapsed. An uncontrolled bankruptcy could only be prevented by big government aid and an emergency merger with competitor UBS. Switzerland is now waiting for a parliamentary inquiry report to reveal who was at fault as the bank disintegrated.
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Should the US Congress Audit the Federal Reserve?
The Federal Reserve system, including its twelve regional district banks that issue our US currency, is a creature of Congress, which passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 to create our central bank. The Fed is neither part of the executive branch of the federal government, nor is it an independent federal agency within the government, although members of the Fed's Board of Governors are appointed by the Presidential and confirmed by Congress.The...
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Strong US Retail Sales may Help Extend the Dollar’s Recovery
Overview: We have put emphasis on today's US retail sales report. A recovery from the weather-induced weakness in January should underscore the resilience of US demand after another 200k jobs were created and personal income jumped 1%.
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Covid: Four Years Later
On this week's Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop reflect on the fourth anniversary of the political response to covid and discuss if any meaningful lessons were learned, could something similar could happen again, and why it is right to still be furious with the tyranny American's experienced from a variety of fronts.Discussed on the Show "Covid Showed Us Who Really Rules America" by Ryan McMaken:...
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