Mises Club Carolinas

2023-09-12

Many historians labeled the twentieth century as the American century, with many metrics used. The end of the Cold War in 1989 and the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in December 1991 changed world affairs: several new countries formed, the Warsaw Pact dissolved, the economy of China rose, and many US military bases shut down. The twentieth century wound down with the US as the world superpower, and yet the vision of the 1990s was not clear for our political and military leaders going into the twenty-first century.
One definition of bankruptcy is “utter ruin, failure, depletion, or the like.” Entering the third decade of the twenty-first century with the perspective to see what has occurred since 2000 reveals this century is becoming the American bankruptcy. One US view of

2023-09-09

The summit of the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has closed with an invitation to join the group extended to the Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, and Ethiopia.
The summit has generated a lot of headlines about the impact of this widespread group of nations, including speculation about the end of the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency if this group is perceived as a threat to the United States or even the International Monetary Fund.
Several things need to be clarified.
Many political analysts believe that China lends, invests, or supports in return for nothing. China is a major economic power, but it has no interest in being a global reserve currency. Its currency is currently used in only 5% of global transactions, according to the

2023-06-13

The Austrian Economics Research Conference is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian school, bringing together leading scholars doing research in this vibrant and influential intellectual tradition. 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the South Royalton Austrian Economics Conference. In honor of this landmark event, there will be sessions and lectures dedicated to evaluating the advances of Austrian economics over the last half century. The conference is hosted by the Mises Institute at its campus in Auburn, Alabama, and is directed by Joseph Salerno, academic vice president of the Mises Institute and professor emeritus of economics at Pace University.
The conference begins on Thursday, March 21 at the Auburn University Hotel with an informal welcome session from

2023-06-12

The real drama of default in global markets has not been the federal debt ceiling negotiations in Washington but the write-off by inflation. The issue of whether it turns out that the US Treasury for a few weeks has been slow in servicing its debts—with all delays subsequently rectified—is a sideshow. We could regard this as camouflage for the ongoing real write-off operation. In this, countries led by the US, where a great inflation emerged during the pandemic and Ukraine war, have achieved big reductions in the real value of their debts.
The governments have also gained from a reduction in the total nominal market value of their fixed-rate debts due to the rise in interest rates. Those gains do not show up directly in national accounts. Rather, they are opportunity cost savings.