6b.) P: Mises.org 2015-01-10 08:00:00

2024-01-12

Jamaica is a small island in the British West Indies, but despite its stature, this tiny nation has elicited the attention of global elites. In politics, Jamaica’s voting behavior at the United Nations is closely monitored by her neighbors in the Caribbean and the global community because she commands influence. Due to historical and cultural complexities, Jamaica is a magnet for academic research, and writing about the country has manifested into a cottage industry. Consistent with her fame, those who study Jamaica tend to be heavyweights in academia. Luminaries from Jeffrey Williamson to Josh Lerner pen intellectual missiles on Jamaica’s economy.
Always in the den of controversy, Jamaica’s recent economic performance has motivated a lively debate between economist Noah Smith and

2024-01-09

There is an untold story in American monetary history. Some are reluctant even to discuss it.
I’m referring to the US Secret Service’s very own role in the destruction of sound money in America.
As constitutional, sound money in the form of physical gold and silver coins—whether minted privately or not—became an annoying impediment to expanding the size and power of the federal government, central planners began circulating unbacked paper proxies and formed a Gestapo-like police agency to enforce the scheme.
Founded in 1865, toward the tail end of the American Civil War, the Secret Service originated as a branch of the US Treasury Department.
The primary job of this federal police force was to prevent others from counterfeiting the U.S. currency, which had just been nationalized through

2024-01-06

On Monday night, January 8, the University of Michigan and the University of Washington football teams will vie for the collegiate national championship. While championships always bring excitement to fans and participants alike, this year’s game brings attention to major changes that have occurred in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I in the past few years involving both monetary payments and mobility for athletes.
While there is excitement for the game, we are seeing undercurrents that some claim will “destroy college football” as we have known it. The major changes involve athletes being able to gain product endorsements or make money off their likeness (Name, Image, and Likeness, or NIL) as well as being able to transfer one time via the NCAA Transfer Portal with

2024-01-03

It certainly isn’t common to find much agreement between the various authors here at the Mises Institute and our favorite metaphorical punching bag: Paul Krugman. But when it comes to the recently resurrected policy corpse of rent control, we have found a common cause.
As Krugman noted back in 2000,
The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and—among economists, anyway—one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that “a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.” Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand. Sky-high rents on

2023-12-30

[Chapter 1 of Rothbard’s newly edited and released Conceived in Liberty, vol. 5: The New Republic: 1784–1791.]
After peace came in 1783, the new republic faced a two-fold economic adjustment: to peacetime from the artificial production and trade patterns during the war, and to a far different trading picture than had existed before the war. The largest change between the two eras of peace was the shift in trading patterns resulting from independence. Most importantly, while Americans were freed from the shackles of British mercantilism and could trade freely with the rest of the world, the United States was now a foreign country that could no longer freely enjoy a market within the British Empire.
While the bulk of America’s trade remained with the British Empire, the pressure of New World