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2023-11-16
Many economists, including Milton Friedman, have claimed that reality is elusive and that one cannot know its true nature. Most mainstream economists also believe that data gives us the state of the economy. By inspecting numbers such as gross domestic product (GDP) or the consumer price index, only then can an economist accurately assess the state of economic conditions.
Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School of Economics have had a different view. According to Mises, the data is a historical display and, by itself, cannot provide the facts regarding the real world. To make sense of the data, one needs to have a theory beforehand that will allow one to interpret the data, and the theory must originate from something real that cannot be refuted. A theory resting on the foundation that
2023-11-15
Americans live in a complex world. That has made those who argue for ever-growing statism to often claim that “the more complex the society, the more government control we need.” One major reason is that this claim allows them to assert that even if liberty was appropriate in a long-past, simple “horse and buggy” age (as when America began as a country), it cannot possibly be so now.
When I hear such an assertion, the first thing I think of is whether the world we face today really is more complex for us than in the distant past. Regarding how much technology is in use, the world is clearly more complex. However, with regard to how many different skills and abilities someone in that distant past needed to survive, I am not so sure. A single person in the past might have to build their own
2023-11-15
The United States regime has picked sides in the Israel-Hamas war and has committed to funding Israel’s ongoing bombing of non-combatant men, women, and children in the Gaza strip. Northern Gaza’s infrastructure is now all but destroyed, with millions of Gazans displaced and homeless. Nearly ten times more Gazans than Israelis have now died in the conflict. Many Gazans have fled to the southern portion of Gaza, but homelessness and abject poverty awaits them there.
By employing what is essentially the carpet-bombing approach, Tel Aviv has made the choice of adopting a policy that is sure to produce hundreds of thousands of refugees—or perhaps even more than a million. Indeed, many in the Israeli regime are motivated to maximize refugees, and push Gazans out of the country altogether using
2023-11-10
Trading, forecasting, aggregating, and innovating—referred to from here on out as the Four—are activities that people have engaged in since the beginning of humanity. They are part of the human fabric because they stem from mankind’s peculiarities—heterogeneity, inclination to forecast, sociality, and inventiveness. The Four are key social interactions in human life at both the individual and aggregate levels.
In 2022, the value of worldwide global exports amounted to approximately $25 trillion at the current price. Most humans live together in urban areas, while an even larger share belongs to social groups such as families and firms. Virtually everyone must deal with forecasts and innovations (in the role of consumer, saver, voter, taxpayer, worker, and tenant). In a nutshell, the Four
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