The US economy is ultimately driven by millions of people working hard to create and trade goods and services, but the US federal government can impact the economy in three main ways: 2) fiscal and regulatory policy: impacts production and who benefits and loses; 2) foreign policy and war: impacts production, life, and quality of life; and, 3) monetary policy: impacts inflation/deflation and boom-bust cycles.The key lesson of economic science was articulated well by Adam Smith in 1776 and has been repeated by all knowledgeable economists since then, including Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard: free the economy!That means to avoid any counterproductive government interventions in voluntary trade and private property rights. Economic science teaches us that good fiscal and regulatory

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

As Murray N. Rothbard explained in his masterful economic treatiseMan, Economy, and State with Power and Market,The distinctive and crucial feature in the study of man is the concept of action. Human action is defined simply as purposeful behavior. . . . The entire realm of praxeology and its best developed subdivision, economics, is based on an analysis of the necessary logical implications of this concept.All the laws of economics are derived from the fundamental facts of human action. For example, one of the most important laws of economics is the law of supply and demand. This law states that as prices of a good or service rise, demand falls and supply rises. Conversely, as prices of a good or service fall, demand rises and supply falls. The equilibrium price of a good or service is

As Austrian Business Cycle Theory explains, big-ticket capital expenditures are heaving influenced by interest rates, as we discussed here.Since housing is a big-ticket capital expenditure, demand for housing is strongly influenced by interest rates, which makes it an excellent leading indicator of the business cycle.

One of the biggest and most pervasive myths in modern-day economics is the myth of the omnipotence of the Federal Reserve.
Original Article: It’s Time to Bust the Myth of Fed Omnipotence

Economists, investors, businesspeople, and yes, even our wise politicians seem to believe that the Federal Reserve, using its various “tools” to create money out of thin air (which is illegal for mere mortals like us), can control the economy and financial markets any way it likes.
In particular, these people believe that the Fed doesn’t want a recession and a stock bear market, and the Federal Reserve can simply prevent these economic events from happening.
The Market Is Much Bigger than the Fed
However, the world doesn’t work that way.
The economy and financial markets are much bigger and more powerful than the Fed. The reason the Fed appears to “work” in preventing recessions and bear markets is that recessions and bear markets are typically much shorter than economic expansions and

I recently wrote about how the Federal Reserve has made the economy of the United States much worse than it would have been without their bureaucratic central planning over the past century.
While the Fed’s disastrous track record is widely acknowledged even by Fed apologists, they point out that life was not perfect before the Fed either. They correctly note that there were business cycles before the creation of the Fed. So, even though inflation has been much higher with the Fed and the Fed helped cause the Great Depression and Great Recession, the US would still have had economic crises without the Fed.
That is true. However, the Fed has distorted the economy so significantly over the past century that business cycles and inflation are much worse than they were before. Instead of

Since its founding in 1913, the unelected central planning bureaucrats at the Federal Reserve have been given the incredible privilege of legally creating money out of thin air, which mere mortals like us are not allowed to do. They have also been given the tremendous responsibility of maintaining (1) maximum employment, (2) a stable price level, and (3) low interest rates.
How have they done so far?
Since 1913, the bureaucrats at the Fed have helped cause
over 20 percent price inflation by printing money for World War Ithe depression in the early 1920s, with over 15 percent price deflationthe Great Depression of the 1930s, with 25 percent unemployment and over a 10 percent collapse in the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United Statesthe “stagflation” of the 1970s, with double-digit

As the US government debases the dollar, other nations take notice and possibilities increase that another currency based on sound principles might emerge.

Original Article: "Will a New BRICS Currency Change Anything? Maybe"

Money first originated through the voluntary exchange of commodities, such as gold and silver, in order to eliminate the inefficiencies of barter.
As Austrian school of economics founder Carl Menger explained:
Money is not an invention of the state. It is not the product of a legislative act. Even the sanction of political authority is not necessary for its existence. Certain commodities came to be money quite naturally, as the result of economic relationships that were independent of the power of the state.
However, governments quickly learned that they could gain enormous wealth and power by taking control of money. Ludwig von Mises detailed in his magnum opus Human Action how this control has harmed human progress and noted that “For two hundred years the governments have interfered

While the Biden White House claims we are on a steady course of prosperity, the more realistic future is that of a global recession.

Original Article: "The Coming Recession Will Be a Global One"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

Over one hundred years ago, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises discovered what causes the boom-bust business cycle.
As Mises explained, the boom is caused by central and commercial banks creating money out of thin air. This lowers interest rates, which encourages businesses to borrow this newly created money to fund capital-intensive investment projects.
The bust is caused when the money creation process slows. It is then that businesses discover there are not enough scarce resources to complete their projects, so these projects must be liquidated to allow for labor and other resources to be allocated to where they are most desired by consumers.
As a result, not only does the boom-bust business cycle cause tremendous short-term hardship, but it also lowers long-term living standards by

Jay “The Inflation We Caused Is Transitory” Powell finally did it. On Friday, the Fed chair finally mustered the courage to say that he is going to do the job he has been hired to do: the Fed will not “pivot” to cut interest rates until inflation slows meaningfully and persistently—even if the stock, bond, and housing bear markets become much worse and the economy goes into recession.

The primary cause of the recurring “boom and bust” business cycle is central banks like the Federal Reserve creating money out of thin air. This was first explained by Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises over a century ago. His student F.A. Hayek won the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics for his work on this theory, which is now known as Austrian business cycle theory.