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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 with extremely low income are severely cost-burdened, spending 50 percent of household income on rent. About 13 percent of middle-income households are spending 30 percent or more on rent. An income of $66,000 is needed to afford a two-bedroom rental.”Other problems presented at the roundtable included a deficit of eighty-nine thousand housing

In July 2021, the Watson Institute of Public Affairs at Brown University reported that since September 11, 2001, 7,057 US military personnel have been killed in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Civilian contractor deaths reached 8,000, although the institute admits this is an estimate considering many contractors were not US citizens, so some deaths went unreported. Finally, 30,177 US service members would commit suicide after their deployments to these war zones, and the number of wounded veterans is even higher, as the Watson Institute would claim:
Over 1.8 million veterans have some degree of officially recognized disability as a result of the wars—veterans of the current wars account for more than half of the severely disabled veteran population. Many additional

Market processes rely on prices, which are not established by a government decree or by the randomness of the human mind but are instead determined by supply and demand. The consumer’s wants and needs are signaled through prices, which are in turn satisfied by the producers, who want to make a profit. Despite the success of this process, many still believe that government intervention is necessary to help the poor and to provide services that may not be available in the market.
So, throughout the world, many nations adopted a mixed economy model. While private property and private ownership exist, government intervention in the economy is still necessary in order to achieve social aims such as providing services to the poor and unemployed and intervening in industry, all of which is funded

The UAW’s strike against US automakers will do long-term damage to the domestic auto industry. Unfortunately, unions and their advocates will learn nothing from this debacle.

Original Article: Strikes Always Have Economic Consequences and the Latest UAW Strike Is No Exception

On September 15, 2023, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union staged a massive strike consisting of thirteen thousand workers, and for the first time, the union hit three separate automotive enterprises simultaneously: General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis. The Associated Press noted that only three assembly plants are on strike at the moment: a General Motors factory in Wentzville, Missouri; a Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan; and a Jeep factory owned by Stellantis in Toledo, Ohio.
What is the UAW demanding? Another Associated Press article outlined the demands of the UAW and its president, Shawn Fain:
The union is asking for 36% raises in general pay over four years—a top-scale assembly plant worker gets about $32 an hour now. In addition, the UAW has demanded an end to varying tiers of wages

While Americans believe the First Amendment protects their speech, the US government and mainstream media have joined together to suppress speech that does not coincide with government policies.

Original Article: "Censorship through the Centuries: Free Speech Suppression by the Government and the Mainstream Media"

The United States government, which prides itself in being the leading force in defending freedom throughout the world, has a history of putting a muzzle on news organizations and individuals throughout its history. From the early colonial period to the beginnings of the internet, the state has consistently silenced its critics, which seems to be its true nature.
The Sedition Act of 1798
Signed into law by the Federalist Party president John Adams on July 14, 1798, the Sedition Act made it illegal to print, utter, or publish any false, scandalous, and malicious writing about the government. Section 2 of the Sedition Act outlines the punishment for violating this new law: “Such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be

Shoddy service, regular breakdowns, and overbudget to boot. There is a reason why government-funded projects always waste resources.

Original Article: "The Failure of Public Works and Public Funding"

State projects are funded by your money, either through taxation or by inflation, most times both. Money is either taken directly from you or you lose purchasing power. The result is the same, as you will lose the ability to buy or produce as much as you wanted because of these projects. However, this is the alleged cost of living in a “civilized society.” Without these projects, we would be driving on dirt roads, living in shacks, and working for pennies a day.
However, these projects usually make the country poorer. Henry Hazlitt, in Economics in One Lesson, noted the unseen aspect of public works, such as a bridge project, writing:
If the bridge costs $1,000,000 the taxpayers will lose $1,000,000. They will have that much taken away from them which they would otherwise have spent on the

When I took my high school’s twentieth-century world history class, both the teacher and workbooks claimed repeatedly that World War II took us out of the Great Depression. Why would anyone question this? After all, unemployment went down. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics measured the unemployment rate from 1929 onward. In 1939 the unemployment rate stood at 17.2 percent. By 1942 it was at 4.7 percent, and by 1944 it was at 1.2 percent.
Professor Friedrich Hayek wrote in his essay “Full Employment, Planning, and Inflation” about the phenomenon of full employment and the reason behind it. Professor Hayek stated:
Full employment has come to mean that maximum of employment that can be brought about in the short run by monetary pressure. This may not be the original meaning of the theoretical

Long before there was the infamous German inflation of 1923, the Reichsbank created the scenario of monetary debasement.

Original Article: "The Reichsbank: Germany’s Central Bank Lays Foundation of Monetary Disaster"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

The Federal Reserve was supposed to prevent recessions that people blamed on the lack of central banking. Not surprisingly, the post-Fed recessions have been worse.

With a recession looming over the average American, the group to blame is pretty obvious, this group being the central bankers at the Federal Reserve, who inflate the supply of currency in the system, that currency being the dollar. This is what inflation is, the expansion of the money supply either through the printing press or adding zeros to a computer screen.