Just about every so-called business periodical touts an increase in consumer spending as “good for the economy.” But is this really so? Can we really spend our way out of a recession? Lord John Maynard Keynes thought so, and his teachings have become the standard narrative just about everywhere in the world.Probably the most influential economic treatise of all time is Keynes’ “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,” published in 1936 at the height of the Great Depression. Keynes theorized that the Great Depression was caused by insufficient aggregate demand, otherwise known as spending. A complementary concept is the paradox of savings, which theorized that savings is harmful because it causes aggregate demand to fall. Keynes (and others) preached that, although

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.

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.

The debate over publicly funded welfare can be solved very quickly. There is constant demand for more welfare: more money for longer periods of time for those out of work, more money for the handicapped and a more liberal definition of what is considered to be handicapped, more money for the disabled (which assumes that the recipients once were not disabled) and more categories for what is considered to be a disability, and larger increases in Social Security payments in order to keep up with the deterioration in the purchasing power of the dollar.The list goes on and on, and the demands are never satisfied. In fact, satisfying some new demand seems to open the floodgates to more demands.The Welfare Debate Cannot Be Answered EmpiricallyHowever, the entire debate is unnecessary and could be

Many economic pundits predict that the United States and much of the world is either in a recession or about to enter one, depending upon one’s definition of the term “recession.” This brief essay is not intended to be a comprehensive explanation of what causes such economic cycles but rather the proper way to end them as quickly as possible.

Much onerous and harmful government regulation can be prevented by the application of well-known and well-understood principles of logic. I will use the recent regulations placed upon Americans in response to the so-called pandemic. I refer to the panoply of regulations that government enacted starting in 2020 as the covid control program. Application of proper logic would have eliminated the debate over the possible effectiveness of the regulations by allowing the individual to decide for himself, without harm to others, whether or not to adopt them.
There were four main elements to the covid control program:
Mandatory vaccinesMandatory maskingMandatory social distancingMandatory business lockdowns (and the completely arbitrary division of businesses into “essential” and

While the ruling elites and the Federal Reserve try to sell digital money as “modern” and “convenient,” it poses threats to financial privacy and civil liberties.
Original Article: "The Dangers of a ""Cashless"" Economy

Before delving into the dangers of eliminating cash and mandating that all transactions be conducted by digital means, let us briefly discuss the legal aspects of money. In the United States, as in all economies that have legal tender laws, only cash is recognized as money. Some may think that the balance of their bank accounts is money too, but that is not quite the case. Your bank balance is one step removed from legal money.
All banks must maintain minimum balances of reserves, in cash held either in their vaults—a very small amount—or in their “reserve accounts” with their local Federal Reserve Bank branch (there are twelve of them). These reserve account balances may be converted to real money, or cash, at your bank’s discretion. However, the total cash in our economy also includes

Keynes denounced monetary gold as "a barbarous relic." In the end, it will be that "barbarous relic" that overthrows the regime of paper currency.
Original Article: "Gold Will Destroy the Keynesian Fallacies"

Since the end of World War II, the US dollar has been the world’s reserve currency. That status may well change because US monetary authorities insist on inflating the dollar into oblivion.
Original Article: "Dollar Hegemony Is Ending Due to Geopolitical Changes"

Leaders of the Western democracies are unprepared to deal with the forces that will end the fiat dollar’s dominance as the preferred medium of international trade settlement, in place since the end of the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1971.
The BRICS summit, currently taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa, is expected to include an agreement on a first step toward establishing an alternative international trade settlement system based on commodities, which would certainly include gold. Dozens of non-Western and even some Western-affiliated nations are attending and watching with great interest. Six new members have been invited to join Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Although the coming change

Since the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944, the dollar has been the world’s preferred reserve currency—the major trading nations of the world were willing to hold dollars in vast amounts to satisfy their need for a readily accepted worldwide payment medium. Even when, in 1971, the United States violated its solemn promise to redeem its dollars for gold at thirty-five dollars per ounce, nations were still willing to hold dollars.
Germany Shies Away from Monetary Leadership
In the mid-2010s, I was certain that Germany would abandon the euro and reinstate the deutsche mark. It was clear, especially to some German central bankers, that Germany was being cheated by the European Central Bank. Germany’s TARGET2 surplus represented a vast excess of German exports to other European Union members,

Pennsylvania legislators don’t claim to be putting people out of work or killing job opportunities. They claim they just want workers to earn more pay.

Original Article: "Pennsylvania Legislators Want Higher Unemployment, Government Dependency, and Crime"

On June 20, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a bill to raise the commonwealth’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026. Although the bill is unlikely to pass the state senate, it seems only a matter of time before the minimum wage is raised from its current $7.25 per hour, where it has been since 2006.
The Lesson
Those supporting this bill need to read Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. Written in 1946, it has become a classic of free market advocacy. Hazlitt brings to modern audiences the timeless lesson most famously penned in 1850 by Claude Frédéric Bastiat in “That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen.”
The one lesson has two parts. First, any economic action must be viewed for its effect not only on the immediate party but by its effect on all parties in

The usual suspects are "relieved" that Congress gave President Biden what he wanted on the so-called budget deal. Without sound money, however, the borrowing and spending regime will collapse sooner or later.

Original Article: "Sound Money Is Required for Real Budget Discipline"

News here in the USA has been full of the latest farce known as raising or not raising the debt ceiling. After the usual dog-and-pony show, a budget deal was reached. But was it progress? It was a foregone conclusion that the debt ceiling would be raised, yet again, for the simple mathematical reason that unless the budget is cut, via spending cuts or increases in taxes, it can do nothing else.
With the budget deficit projected to be (hold on to your hat!) $1.5 TRILLION, that is a political impossibility. Notice that I used the adjective “political.” Of course, technically it isn’t impossible to balance the budget or even run a surplus. But under the current monetary regime of fiat money that can be produced in any amount at the click of a computer at the Fed, there is no support either in

A generation ago, the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR collapsed. Today, US monetary authorities are bringing down our own country.

Original Article: "Role Reversal: The Collapse of the Dollar-Enforced Empire"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

The Soviet empire started to crumble around 1989. The time period between the forming of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the late 1940s and the retreat of Russia from Eastern Europe with the eventual collapse of communism in Russia is known as the Cold War. There was a great power confrontation in Europe that did not result in war.
Essentially, US-led NATO stood its ground to prevent further Soviet expansion from the territory it occupied at the end of World War II and waited for the inevitable collapse. Now, perhaps not everyone saw the collapse of the Soviet empire as inevitable. But all one had to do was view the Soviet empire for oneself, up close and personal, which is what I did in the early 1970s as a young Air Force officer.
The State of the Communist Economy
The

Is it possible, or even desirable, for economic freedom and progress to be compatible with authoritarianism? Although some may believe so, this is a fallacy. Freedom is indivisible. Political and economic freedom cannot be separated.
This is the position of Ludwig von Mises himself. In Planning for Freedom, he says, “Tyranny is the political corollary of socialism, as representative government is the political corollary of the market economy.” Regarding a citizen’s reaction to such tyranny, he writes in Planned Chaos that “If one master plan is to be substituted for the plans of each citizen, endless fighting must emerge. Those who disagree with the dictator’s plan have no other means to carry on than to defeat the despot by force of arms.” Mises contrasts the tyranny of socialism with

In a recent essay, I explained how over time the US abused its responsibility to control the supply of dollars, the world’s premier reserve currency for settling international trade accounts among nations. This abrogation of its duties is leading to the likely adoption of a new reserve currency, commodity based and controlled not by one nation but by members, all watchful that the currency is not inflated.

One of the arrogances of “Western” nations is that our way of life and our liberties are protected by periodic elections as required by constitutions, written (America) or not (Great Britain), containing bills of rights, etc. The people rule, it is claimed, and we get exactly what we want, even if those in the minority are unhappy with the result.

The following is a plea to Germany—the war is over and has been for three-quarters of a century. It’s time to stop prostrating yourself for the supposed "good" of Europe. It’s time to take complete control of your domestic and foreign policy, without interference from haughty, busybody world elites, and do what is best for yourself. You will be pleasantly surprised that what is good for yourself is also good for your neighbors and the world.

A recent essay on the Mises Wire triggered quite a bit of discussion among a group of Austrian school economists. Paul H. Kupiec and Alex J. Pollock’s “Who Owns Federal Reserve Losses and How Will They Impact Monetary Policy?”

The government and the mainstream media’s favorite economic statistic is gross domestic product (GDP). If GDP goes up, then the economy is doing well. If GDP shrinks, then the economy is doing poorly, or so it is assumed. It all seems so simple. But GDP tells us no such thing. The economy may be doing poorly when GDP rises. Likewise, the economy may be doing well when GDP falls.

The seeds of sound-money destruction were sown at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which established that US dollars could be held as central bank reserves and were redeemable for gold by the US Treasury at thirty-five dollars an ounce. This was the so-called gold exchange standard, but only foreign central banks and some multinational organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), enjoyed this right of redemption. The system depended upon the solemn promise by the US that it would refrain from issuing unbacked dollars. The watershed event that ushered in a new malignant, pure fiat money era occurred on August 15, 1971, when the US abandoned the gold exchange standard in order to stop the drain on the US gold stock.
American money printing had begun in earnest in the

What causes the seemingly unfounded confidence in socialism we encounter more and more in the news media and among political activists? In the Extinction Rebellion movement, for example, activists are quite certain they have learned that there is an alternative to markets as the means to economic prosperity. It’s a means that does not involve meeting the legitimate needs of one’s fellow men in the marketplace.

Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito

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True welfare and value can only be achieved through exchange when it is fully voluntary. When the state intervenes to "improve" trade, it destroys value, all the government stats notwithstanding, writes Patrick Barron.This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Dianna Keiler.

Collective security agreements allow many countries’s politicians to shift the cost of national defense to taxpayers outside their own countries. Moral hazard, belligerence, and over-reliance on military solutions often ensue, writes Patrick Barron.This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Robert Hale.