Editors note: The following article was published in July 1974 in The Libertarian Forum titled “One Heartbeat Away.” In it, Murray Rothbard provides elite theory analysis of Watergate after the selection of Nelson Rockefeller as Gerald Ford’s Vice President. While Rothbard’s fear of a Rockefeller presidency did not come to fruition, his post-political life included the creation of the Trilateral Commission which continued to have incredible influence over future presidential administrations.For more Rothbardian elite analysis similar to what is provided below, readers are encouraged to read Origins of the Federal Reserve and Wall Street, Banks, and Foreign Policy, the latter of which continues this analysis into 1984.****As the Watergate revelations poured out in the last years, our

The sitting president is facing an unprecedented inner-party campaign to end his candidacy over his obvious cognitive decline. The presidential front-runner was an inch away from being killed on live television. Yet, in the middle of one of the craziest weeks in modern political history, the most fascinating development is the nomination of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate.The significance of the decision is itself influenced by the context of the moment. Media accounts suggest that Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance helped influence Trump’s Veep consideration, and the 38-year-old Vance – the first Millennial on a national ticket – is a stark contrast to America’s current gerontocracy. It has similarly been reported that figures like Tucker Carlson advocated

For the second time in three weeks, a political event actually mattered. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, evaded only by a short turn of the head, has created a rare moment of national reflection about the current state of American politics. Whether or not it is a moment that has true historical relevance beyond simply influencing a single election or canonizing a new iconic photo in future school textbooks will be decided by how seriously its lessons are internalized by the public.First of all, the most noteworthy aspects of this attempted attack are precisely how unsurprising such an extraordinary act was. If one takes the regime’s opposition to Donald Trump seriously and recognizes how weakened, the regime’s hold on political opinion is, then the long expectation has been

Following last week’s decisions, which represented a significant blow to the American administrative state, today, the Supreme Court did what was widely expected: rule in favor of Donald Trump in a case related to federal prosecution over January 6. In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that presidents have “presumptive immunity” for “official acts” while in office.The decision does not necessarily kill the potential for federal prosecution, kicking the question to a lower district court about whether or not Trump’s actions constitute an “official act.” In practice, however, it effectively delays any future decision until after the November election.The unexceptional outcome has been met with predictable hysteria from critics of the former president, with rabid online fans suggesting that the

Presidential debates are a quirky aspect of modern American politics. In theory, they are the closest thing to political combat, a rare opportunity for political leaders to publicly contrast differences in ideology and vision for the country. In reality, presidential debates have become something more akin to pop culture, with actors repeating lines they don’t believe in, achieving a desired reaction from various popular audiences. A particular line is meant to earn the applause of a desired constituency; another is meant to appease a small group of donors who have a unique interest in the topic at hand.Last night’s debate was different. While the substance offered by Joe Biden and Donald Trump was the same form of closely coached messaging carefully designed to compliment a calculated

This week, the House passed H. R. 6090, a bill sold to the public as an “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” but effectively outsources the definition of actionable Civil Rights Act “antidiscrimination” violations to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. In doing so, the DC uniparty has granted a significant concession on the First Amendment at a time when its freedom of speech is facing a coordinated attack from powerful, globalist institutions.The bill itself is far shorter and simpler than most of the bills that emerged from Congress. It grounds itself in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, finds that “antisemitism is on the rise in the United States and is impacting Jewish students in K–12 schools, colleges, and universities”, and then formally adopts the IHRA’s definition of

Last night, Brazilian fighter Renato Moicano went viral after his victory over JalinTurner at UFC 300, giving a shout-out to Ludwig von Mises himself.’I love America, I love the Constitution…I want to carry…guns. I love private property. Let If you something. If you care about your…country, read Ludwig von Mises and the six lessons of the Austrian economic school.The full clip is available here, with some colorful adult language included.Moicano’s endorsement of Mises is a credit to the growing Austrian economics movement in Brazil, which has not only enjoyed success within universities and the political system but also culturally. Despite the imposition of socialist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the extreme crackdown on free speech being imposed on the nation through the

Recorded in Tampa, Florida, on February 17, 2024.
Special thanks to Liberty Villages and the Shrader family for sponsoring this event.

Last Thursday, Bloomberg reported that federal regulators are preparing a proposal to force US banks to utilize the Federal Reserve’s discount window in preparation for future bank crises. The aim, notes Katanga Johnson, is to remove the stigma around tapping into this financial lifeline, part of the continuing fallout from the failures of several significant regional banks last year.
This new policy is reminiscent of the Fed’s actions during the 2007 financial crisis, where financial authorities encouraged large banks to tap into the discount window, taking loans directly from the Federal Reserve, to make it easier for distressed banks to do the same. The hesitancy from financial institutions to tap into this source of liquidity is justified. If the public believes a bank needs support

With a doveish pivot, Jerome Powell is declaring victory over inflation. It would be extraordinarily naive to ignore the influence of next year’s presidential election on the Fed’s new outlook.
Original Article: Will Powell’s Pivot Bail Out Biden?

This week’s decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to ban — for now — Donald Trump from the state’s presidential ballot is the latest escalation in the broader theatre of deteriorating political norms in America. The four-three decision is grounded in the Court’s opinion that Trump’s actions on January 6 represent culpability in an attempted “insurrection” and therefore disqualify him under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The response to the court’s decision was predictable. On the left, political leaders in other Democrat-controlled states immediately called for their own disqualification efforts. Most amusingly, and an excellent illustration of the current state of American politics, a letter by the California Lt. Governor proclaimed: “The constitution is clear: you must be 40 years old and

Tucker Carlson, who recently announced his own new media network, has been making the podcast rounds, talking to hosts of a variety of different ideological backgrounds. An interview a few weeks ago with Dave Smith had a moment that went viral when both men proclaimed Bill Buckley as a great villain of the 20th Century. (Murray Rothbard would agree.) Recently a new clip with Glenn Greenwald made the social media rounds with Carlson claiming that “libertarian economics is a scam perpetrated by the beneficiaries of the economic system.”
Understandably, this quote made Carlson an immediate target for libertarians who frequently celebrate his takes on foreign policy but often cringe when he ventures into economic commentary. While the reaction to defend the label of “libertarian” is both

For the last few years, Jerome Powell has remained constant: the Fed was ready to do anything necessary until inflation returned to its 2% target. 
Today, Powell blinked.
While the Federal Reserve’s own optimistic projections place their preferred inflation measures staying above two percent until 2026, Powell used the December meeting to unravel the equivalent of a Mission Accomplished banner on the fight against inflation, potentially with the same results that awaited George W. Bush in Iraq. Rate hikes are over, rate cuts — plural — may be on the horizon in 2024.
According to the Fed’s dot plot, three potential cuts was the most popular opinion of FOMC members going into next year, with five other members expecting even more aggressive easing. While the Fed’s projections for their

The recent attacks in Israel are a horrific reminder of how lightly guarded civilization is from savagery.

Original Article: Hamas, Israel, and the Collapse of the Fiat Global Order

This past weekend, the world witnessed absolute barbarism play out as Hamas agents brutally targeted Israeli civilians. The State of Israel, suffering from a historic failure to protect its residents, has predictably responded with major military operations in the Gaza strip. The result is a growing regional conflict fueled by historic feuds beyond the scale of traditional geopolitical considerations.
Add to this the ongoing war in Ukraine, a less-talked-about conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the threat of renewed fighting between Kosovo and Serbia, and the world is witnessing the breakdown of a global order established by modern assumptions that are being exposed.
In the later part of his career, Murray Rothbard identified the Whig theory of history as one of the most

The word “chaos” has been the buzzword this week in Washington, largely directed toward Rep. Matt Gaetz’s successful coup against former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and the resulting void in Republican leadership. In an era where most outcomes in Washington are predictable, best illustrated by yet another kick-the-can-down-the-road continuing resolution on spending passed the preceding weekend, the first successful use of a motion to vacate the speakership in American history greatly shocked the system.
In hindsight, it should not have been. For more than a decade, there has been a constant tension between Republican voters and the priorities of its leadership. McCarthy similarly saw his previous two Republican predecessors resign from their positions after it was clear they lost

Matthew Mohlman joins Good Money with Tho Bishop to discuss his work with Monument Ventures. Matthew and Tho discuss the need to build better alternatives to woke financial institutions, and the limit of political solutions to address the problem.
Join Bob Murphy, Patrick Newman, Jonathan Newman, and Murray Sabrin in November for a Mises Circle in Ft. Meyers, FL on The White House, the Fed, and the Economy. Use promo code Tampa23 for $10 off registration.
Matthew’s Article on JPMorgan’s Progressive, Anti-Faith Agenda: Mises.org/GM21a
On Politically-Motivated ‘De-Banking’: Mises.org/GM21b
Vivek Ramaswamy on ESG: Mises.org/GM21c
Monument Ventures: Mises.org/GM21d

Good Money listeners can order a special $5 book bundle that includes How To Think About the Economy and What Has

Recorded in Windham, New Hampshire, on August 20, 2023.
Special thanks to Joe and Tracy Matarese for making this event possible.

The fall of the Pac-12 is an unfortunate end to a proud collegiate institution. But its death isn’t the fault of uncurable greed but of the conference’s own inability to be competitive in the game.

Original Article: ""Greed" Didn’t Kill the Pac-12. Entrepreneurial Failure Did"

For college football fans, it’s already been a wild August week before the first kickoff.
Reminiscent of the Europe of old, and, hopefully, the America of the future, the collegiate athletic landscape in the last several years has witnessed a massive redrawing conference kingdom borders. The most powerful empires are the SEC and the Big Ten, with the former adding the Universities of Texas and Oklahoma and the latter pursuing manifest destiny in the West with the addition of Southern California and UCLA in 2022, and Oregon and Washington this past week.
This shift in borders coincided with a negotiation of television rights. Disney (which owns ESPN and ABC) secured a monopoly on the SEC by adding full broadcast rights to their games to a preexisting arrangement with ESPN that included

Trump is essentially being prosecuted for questioning the outcome of an election, and federal paranoia about protecting its own aura of legitimacy is entering a new highly aggressive phase. 

Original Article: "The United States vs. Donald J. Trump"

To seriously threaten the regime, one must attack it at its roots. This would require rejecting the modern civil rights legal regime, something modern Buckleyite conservatives and James Lindsay-style liberals are not interested in, and unites paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians.

Original Article: "Paleoconservatives Need Better Critics"

Paul Gottfried is no stranger to criticism from “conservative” gatekeepers. Like his friend and colleague Murray Rothbard, Gottfried has been a target of Buckleyite conservativism ever since he was ousted from the National Review in the 1980s. Also, like Rothbard, Gottfried’s ideas have continued to inspire new generations of Americans sincerely interested in grappling with societal issues as neoconservatism has waned everywhere outside of Washington, DC.
Recently Michael Lucchese at Law and Liberty joined National Review’s Bobby Miller and prominent Twitter intellectual James Lindsay in publicly criticizing Gottfried’s work. The occasion for the first two men is the recent publication of A Paleoconservative Anthology, edited by Gottfried and filled with contributions influenced by his

On this episode of Good Money, Tho Bishop is joined by Wesley Schlemmer, president and co-founder of Bitcoin Bay. Wesley discusses the benefits of creating local professional networks around common values and how Bitcoin Bay is helping Tampa residents convert Bitcoin into real goods and services, including locally raised beef.

Learn more about Bitcoin Bay at Bitcoinbay.live. 
Good Money listeners can order a special $5 book bundle that includes How To Think About the Economy and What Has Government Done to Our Money? with free shipping using promo code "GoodMoney" at Mises.org/Good
Receive a free subscription to The Austrian magazine at Mises.org/Magazine

On this episode of Good Money with Tho Bishop, Jeffrey Kauffman joins the show to discuss recent attacks from the SEC on major crypto exchanges. Kauffman, CEO of LBRY and content platform Odysee, shares his own company’s battle with the SEC, the impossible burdens regulators have placed on legal compliance, and why DC’s Operation Chokepoint 2.0 could be a positive for the industry in the long run.
Good Money listeners can order a special $5 book bundle that includes How To Think About the Economy and What Has Government Done to Our Money? with free shipping using promo code "GoodMoney" at Mises.org/Good
Receive a free subscription to The Austrian magazine at Mises.org/Magazine

Welcome to Whose Economy Is It, Anyway?, where the rules are made up and the dollars don’t matter. Or at least that seems to be the view of the Yellen regime.

Original Article: "A Bank Crisis Was Predictable. Was the Fed Lying or Blind?"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

Welcome to Whose Economy Is It, Anyway?, where the rules are made up and the dollars don’t matter. Or at least that seems to be the view of the Yellen regime.
As Doug French noted last week, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was the canary in the coal mine. Over the weekend, Signature Bank became the third-largest bank failure in modern history, just weeks after both firms were given a stamp of approval by KPMG, one of the Big Four auditing firms.
While some in the crypto community are suggesting that the closure of Signature Bank has more to do with a larger war on crypto, the regulatory action was enough to push coordinated action from the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Treasury to do what they do best, ignore clearly established rules to flood a financial

Recorded in Tampa, Florida on February 25, 2023.

In recent years, it has become popular in parts of conservative discourse to discuss the “Brazilianization of America,” a reference to the challenges a large country faces in governing an increasingly multicultural “universal nation.” But this weekend, it was the Americanization of Brazilian politics that took center stage as pro-Bolsonaro forces rose up in aggressive protest against the newly inaugurated Lula regime, in a move reminiscent of what played out in Washington on January 6, 2021.

Last year Congress officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. While Very Serious talking heads attempted desperately to convince those that would listen that Juneteenth was a long-celebrated American holiday, the reality is that it was largely unknown around the nation prior to congressional action. The episode is a useful illustration of how the state weaponizes secular holidays to promote a larger cultural agenda.

Durch die bloße Kraft seiner intellektuellen Arbeit etablierte sich Ludwig von Mises als einer der bedeutendsten Intellektuellen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Seine Abhandlung Human Action ist bis heute ein grundlegendes Werk für die Österreichische Schule der Nationalökonomie.

Should skepticism of the 2020 election, fueled by a new administration’s actions, finally convince 50+ million Trump supporters that the barbarians in the Beltway do not represent him, then Trump’s presidency will be—despite his own actions—the disruption that America’s elites truly feared.

Original Article: "Trump’s Potential Legacy: 50 Million+ Enemies of the State"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Michael Stack.

Covid has exposed how easy it is for government to weaponize healthcare. How long will the doctor-patient relationship remain sacred?

Recent protests in Hong Kong, along with the resulting fall out from international corporations questioned for their relationships with mainland China, has placed a renewed focus on the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party. This has led to several articles identifying ways in which Western countries have learned from the CCP, including Europe’s growing embrace of web censorship and growing interest in the social credit system rolled out in 2018.