Mises Wire



Articles by Mises Wire

Living Free in an Unfree World

The State knows no limits when it comes to intervening in the economy and our lives. From the value of our hard-earned income to the flow of water in our showerheads, nothing is out of reach for meddling bureaucrats.
Ludwig von Mises explained, "The ultimate basis of an all around bureaucratic system is violence." Yet we advocate and hope for a world of peaceful cooperation and flourishing markets. 
It’s doubtful that politics holds all the answers. We cannot just sit and wait for the government to restrain itself. Politicians come and go, but the administrative state is entrenched.
What are the avenues for sidestepping the State? How can we live our lives according to the principles of free markets and liberty despite government encroachment?
Join us in Albuquerque, New Mexico to tackle

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Censorship and Official Lies: The End of Truth in America?

"Truth is treason in an empire of lies." – George Orwell
The State is tightening its stranglehold on its own narrative as its web of lies unravels. The government’s lapdogs in the news media continue to bark and howl on TV even though a majority of American households have cut the cord. And of course, nothing resembling the truth can be heard in the softball press conferences at the White House and the Federal Reserve.
Newspapers, both online and in print, are flailing about with clickbait headlines, and any substance beneath the headline usually just trots out a sanitized narrative for a declining readership. Social media platforms, with rare exceptions, have been more than willing to quash stories and ban users for political purposes.
And don’t get us started on the septic tank known as

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Spring 2024 Mises Book Club

By special request, the Mises Institute will hold its next in-person Mises Book Club, our new program to promote deep reading in Austrian economics, on campus at Oklahoma State University beginning Tuesday, February 6.
In celebration of the 80th anniversary of F. A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, this classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics will be the focus of the next meeting.
For eight riveting weeks, ten to fifteen specially selected students will partake in rich discussions led by Dr. Richard Gajan of Oklahoma State University. The club will meet every Tuesday evening from 5-6 p.m. central time, and students will receive complimentary hard copies of the book. Students will come away with a stronger understanding of individual freedom and the

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DC’s Debt Trap

Federal debt is soaring out of control, and perhaps it is not surprising that the CBO has not updated its forecasts with this debt uncertainty.
Original Article: DC’s Debt Trap

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Virtual Mises University 2024

Join 2024’s Virtual Mises University for only $45—or join free for Mises Institute Members (use your promo code on the back of your Membership card). 
For almost thirty years, Mises Institute scholars have presented at Mises University, a world-class, week-long, intensive event in Austrian Economics. Virtual Mises University is the online component of this seminar for students, professionals, business people, and absolutely anyone, anywhere, who is interested in the pursuit of economic truth. For Virtual Mises U, there is no time limit, and attendees can log on for independent study. 
2024 Faculty
Mises University faculty are among the finest scholars of Austrian economics and libertarian political theory in the world. This year, the faculty include:
Dr. Per Bylund
Dr. Carmen Dorobăț
Dr.

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DC’s Debt Trap

In May this year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated outstanding US government debt next October to be $27,388 billion. By the end of the first quarter of the fiscal year, it will exceed $34,000 billion. It is soaring out of control, and perhaps it is not surprising that the CBO has not updated its forecasts with this debt uncertainty. The CBO also assumed that debt interest costs last year would be $663 billion, when it ended up being $980 billion 48% higher than forecast. For the current fiscal year, the CBO assumed that the average interest cost on debt held by the public would be only 2.9%. Short-term T-bill financing upon which the Treasury has become overly dependent is almost double that.
Of the total bond debt, some $7.6 trillion has to be refinanced this fiscal year, to

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Mises Apprenticeship 2024

"Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of a man’s human existence." —Ludwig von Mises
The strength of the Austrian school has always been grounded in its ability to speak clearly about the issues vital to preserving human civilization. While there is no substitute for the incredible scholastic advancements made by great intellectuals like Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and Joseph Salerno, just as vital has been the popular works of heroes such as Henry Hazlitt and Lew Rockwell. 
It is in this spirit that the Mises Institute is proud to offer the Mises Apprenticeship program.
The Mises

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Mises Circle in Tampa

Save the date! 
Join the Mises Institute in Tampa, FL for our first event of 2024. We’ll meet at The Centre Club, 123 S West Shore Blvd, 8th Floor on Saturday, February 17, 2024. Registration will include all lectures and a catered breakfast.
Speaker, agenda, and registration details forthcoming.
Special thanks to Liberty Villages and the Shrader family for sponsoring this event.

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Supporters Summit 2024

Save the date!
Join us for our 2024 Supporters Summit, October 10–13, 2024, on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. We’ll be at the lovely Omni Hilton Head Oceanfront Resort. 
We will have an event rate at the Omni Hotel for $299 per night before tax. 
Speakers and agenda details forthcoming. Registration will be open soon on this page.

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Mises Wire

But once a commodity is established as a money on the market, no more money at all is needed.
—Murray Rothbard, Taking Money Back
The Fed’s distinguishing characteristic is its grant of privilege to buy assets with money it doesn’t have. No other person or institution can legally do this; those that tried would be indicted for counterfeiting.
At the very least you might think this would raise eyebrows, but it doesn’t except in fringe quarters. It is simply part of modern monetary gospel, never to be examined too closely.
Another part of the gospel is fractional reserve banking, wherein commercial banks create multiple claims to the same dollar through their lending activities. (See Alan Greenspan’s implicit endorsement of fractional reserve banking in his famous defense of gold.)

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Mises Club Carolinas

Join the Mises Club Carolinas for their next Meetup on Saturday, October 7 in Spartanburg, SC. Timothy and Sarah Terrell will host the event at Initial Q Smokehouse from 4:00 – 8:00 p.m. The topic is "Education and Career Preparation from an Austrian Perspective." 
To register or for more information, please contact Kent Misegades, [email protected].

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Rothbard Graduate Seminar 2024

Rothbard Graduate Seminar is an intense study of Misesian and Rothbardian economic analysis with applications to current research and related fields. Participants discuss a common set of readings with each other and Mises Institute faculty, who give advanced lectures on the material.
The goal is to equip graduate students with a solid understanding of the ideas of Mises and Rothbard, so that they may apply it to their graduate studies and research.
The core text for RGS 2024 is Human Action.
Human Action is Ludwig von Mises’s masterful treatise on economics and serves as one of the Mises Institute’s guiding texts. Mises’s ideas in Human Action reignited the Austrian tradition in the 20th century, giving it strong methodological foundations and new clarity and emphasis on praxeology,

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Mises Book Club

In February 2024, the Mises Institute will hold its next Mises Book Club, our new program to promote deep reading in Austrian economics. 
In celebration of the 80th anniversary of F. A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, this classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics will be the focus of the next meeting. 
For eight riveting weeks, ten to fifteen specially selected undergraduate students will partake in rich discussions led by a Mises faculty member with expertise on the book. The club will meet virtually every Tuesday evening from 5-6 p.m. central time, and students will receive complimentary hard copies of the book. Students will come away with a stronger understanding of individual freedom and the threat of totalitarianism. 
Please apply for a position

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Mises University 2024

Mises University is open only to scholarship students and invited donors. If you have any questions, please contact Felicia Jones ([email protected]). 
Austrian Economics
Rooted in the tradition of Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises, as well as Murray Rothbard and F.A. Hayek, the Austrian school offers a rigorous and logical approach to economics that gives free markets their due and takes full account of the reality of human choice. More than a field within economics, the Austrian school is an entirely different approach that dissents from the mainstream on method, theory, and policy. It views economic actors as unique, conscious, and freely choosing individuals, not as undifferentiated data to be manipulated mathematically or politically. 
The Program
Mises University is the world’s

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Human Action Conference 2024

"Once in a great while, a book appears that both embodies and dramatically extends centuries of accumulated wisdom in a particular discipline, and, at the same time, radically challenges the intellectual and political consensus of the day. Human Action by Ludwig Von Mises is such a book, and more: a comprehensive treatise on economic science that would lay the foundation for a massive shift in intellectual opinion that is still working itself out fifty years after publication."
So begins the introduction to the 1998 Scholar’s Edition of Mises’s Human Action, written by Jeffrey Herbener, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Joseph Salerno. These words still ring true today.
We are excited to invite you to join us at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, for our Human Action Conference, celebrating the

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Which Way America? An RPI Event

These are trying times. The war party seems stronger than ever while the peace movement feels even more scattered. 
Make no mistake: D.C. is hungry for war. The neocon plan has always been to defeat Russia using Ukraine as a proxy. It started with Victoria Nuland’s Ukrainian coup in 2014. Now that the proxy war has apparently failed, the neocons are in desperation mode—and they do not have a reverse gear.
If this seems like a bad dream, you are not alone. How does it make sense that more than 30 years after the fall of communism, we are closer to war with Russia than ever? And for what?
The war party seems to have all the money, with the NATO-funded think tanks, the media, most of D.C., and a good part of the brainwashed American public on its side. It may look hopeless, but we have one

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2023 Ron Paul Scholars Seminar

Attention Upper Division Undergrads and Grad Students!
We realize many of you are just getting the hang of summer and as it warms up, the last thing on your mind is exercising it. But, you will not want to miss we this great opportunity at the end of summer: The Ron Paul Scholars Seminar.
The seminar will take place on Friday, September 1 at the Hilton Washington Dulles Airport in Herndon, VA.
What is it?
The Ron Paul Scholars Seminar is a one-day, interactive foreign policy and civil liberties "boot camp," with lectures from some of the most thoughtful pro-liberty/pro-peace professors and professors-of-practice. Past lecturers include U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, former CIA officer Phil Giraldi, former U.S. diplomat and Senate staff member James Jatras, Future of Freedom Foundation founder

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The White House, the Fed, and the Economy: Mises Circle in Ft. Myers, FL

Every day, Americans feels the costs of the political capture of the economy. Inflation, taxes, and regulatory costs hit our paychecks and savings. The regulatory capture of medical industries, food and energy production, and the various instruments of Big Tech empower the regime with new tools to promote their latest ideological cause. The ever-growing burden of government debt has become a crisis without any political will to address it.
This November, the Mises Institute will host an event in Ft. Myers, Florida, to cut through the campaign talking points and offer an uncompromising look at what is coming next. Speakers include Bob Murphy, Patrick Newman, Jonathan Newman, and Murray Sabrin. Join fellow travelers from around Florida and beyond for a dose of sanity before we hit the peak

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Austrian Economics Research Conference 2024

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

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Summer Fellowship 2024

Fellowships in Residence at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, are available to graduate students and post-docs interested in scientific research in the Austrian school and libertarian political economy.
These Fellowships offer a unique opportunity for full-time research and writing in a particular area of specialization under the guidance of Institute faculty. The program targets students seeking careers as academic educators and researchers, though students interested in finance and business are also encouraged to apply.
Generous sponsors enable the Mises Institute to provide Research Fellows with a single occupancy apartment on the Mises Institute campus, an office at the Mises Institute, directed research from Institute faculty, admission to Rothbard Graduate Seminar and Mises

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Mises Book Club

In September 2023, the Mises Institute will hold the inaugural meeting of the Mises Book Club, its newest program to promote deep reading in Austrian economics. 
In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Murray Rothbard’s For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, this iconic Austrolibertarian text will be the focus of our inaugural meeting.
For eight riveting weeks, ten to fifteen specially selected undergraduate students will partake in rich discussions led by a Mises faculty member with expertise on the book. The Club will meet virtually every Tuesday evening from 5-6 p.m. central time, and students will receive complimentary hard copies of the book. Students will come away with a stronger understanding of the causes of current economic issues and the consequences of ongoing

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Mises Meetup Opelika

Join Mises Club Opelika for their second meeting at Botanic in Opelika. The Meetup will take place Saturday, June 24. 
There is no registration fee, but attendance will be limited due to space. 
Please contact Ed Kerns to reserve your spot or if you have any questions, [email protected].

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Virtual Mises University 2023

Join 2023’s Virtual Mises University for only $25—or join free for Mises Institute Members (uses your promo code on the back of your Membership card). 
For almost thirty years, Mises Institute scholars have presented at Mises University, a world-class, week-long, intensive event in Austrian Economics. Virtual Mises University is the online component of this seminar for students, professionals, business people, and absolutely anyone, anywhere, who is interested in the pursuit of economic truth. For Virtual Mises U, there is no time limit, and attendees can log on for independent study.
Anyone who desires this in-depth experience online can attend Virtual Mises U for $25—or free with a Mises Institute Membership code. As an attendee, you can watch live and archived lectures, review and

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Bitcoin 2023

Come visit the Mises Institute’s booth at Bitcoin 2023! Join thousands in Miami Beach, FL for the world’s biggest annual celebration of Bitcoin. The conference will start Thursday, May 18 and conclude Saturday, May 20. 
Buy event tickets here, and be sure to use the discount code MISESB23 at checkout to receive 10% off your registration.

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Mises Club Carolinas

Escape the summer heat for a cool weekend in the beautiful mountains of Banner Elk, NC. Tentative plans are to meet for dinner on Friday, July 21 at the Sugar Mountain Ski Resort. Guest speakers will be Franklin Sanders and his son, Justin, who will discuss their decades long effort to protect the precious metal trading industry from government intervention.
Saturday, July 22 will begin with breakfast with the owners of Sugar Mountain while they discuss how they converted a small, bankrupt ski slope into one of the most successful resorts in the eastern United States. We’ll also get a close look at their advanced snow-making technology and modern ski lifts, which are both keys to their prosperity.
Plan to spend the weekend at Sugar Mountain and its surroundings with many amenities and

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Mises Club Carolinas

Join Mises Club Carolinas for their next meetup in Fort Mill, SC, on Saturday, April 22. We’ll tour Southpoint Solutions, and industrial lighting company from Club Member Jared Wall. After the tour, we’ll have dinner and discussion at Farmhaus Butcher and Beer Garden. The speaker will be a new Club Member, Trey Carson, owner of Happy Mining, a bitcoin mining company in central North Carolina. 
For more information or to register for this event, please contact Kent Misegades, [email protected].

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Supporters Summit 2023

Save the date! 
Join us for our 2023 Supporters Summit, October 12–14, at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. 
Lew Rockwell and Jeff Deist will host a weekend filled with engaging discussion and social time with other Mises members and speakers. We’ll open Thursday evening, October 12 with a reception in Auburn. Friday, October 13, we’ll have discussions and lunch at the Institute and close with a dinner at the new and unique Botanic in Opelika. Saturday, we’ll be back at the Institute for more lectures before finishing with a reception and dinner in Auburn. 
We have a room block at the Auburn University Hotel, only 5 minutes from the Institute, for October 12–14. Please call (334) 821-8200 or use this link, to book, and be sure to mention the Mises event in October to get our special

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2023 Libertarian Scholars Conference

Join the Mises Institute at the 2023 Libertarian Scholars Conference on Saturday, September 23.
We’ll meet at the Grand Hyatt in Nashville, Tennessee.
The first Libertarian Scholars Conference was held in New York City in 1972 under the aegis of the Center for Libertarian Studies.

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2022 Libertarian Scholars Conference

Join Joe Salerno, David Gordon, Jeff Deist, Patrick Newman, and many more at the 2022 Libertarian Scholars Conference on Saturday, September 10th!  We’ll meet at the Grand Hyatt in Nashville, Tennessee.

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An Inflation Outlook for the US Dollar in 2022

First, we must define inflation: it is the increase in the quantity of money, currency, and credit. It is not an increase in prices. Changes in the general price level is the consequence of a combination in changes of the quantity of deposit currency and changes in the level of the public’s retention of deposit currency relative to their possession of goods. We can record deposits statistically, but cannot quantify human behaviour.

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The Biggest Threat to US Hegemony: China, Russia, or Debt?

China and Russia are trying to build a Eurasion bloc that can break free of any American spheres of influence. The American regime obviously opposes this, but money printing and debt limits the American options.

Original Article: "The Biggest Threat to US Hegemony: China, Russia, or Debt?"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Michael Stack.

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The Biggest Threat to US Hegemony: China, Russia, or Debt?

Now that the Biden administration has settled in, it is time to reassess American policy towards Russia, China and the wider Asian scene. Is it going to be a continuation of the Trump administration’s policies, or is there something new going on? Given the continued tenure of staffers at the Pentagon from before the Trump presidency, it seems unlikely there will be much in the way of détente: it is game-on for the cold war to continue.

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