Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

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Trump’s “Liberation Day” Tariffs are a Mistake

2025-04-02

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2025-04-02

Today, April 2, 2025, is what Donald Trump and his team are calling “Liberation Day.” Because later, the president will host an event in the Rose Garden to sign reciprocal tariffs that, in the words of his press secretary, “will roll back the unfair trade practices that have been ripping off our country for decades.”The prospect of sweeping new taxes on the goods, capital, and resources Americans buy from producers in several other countries has...

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The Contested Meaning of the Constitution

2025-04-01

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2025-04-01

To those familiar with constitutional history, it may seem trite to observe that the meaning of the Constitution is contested. Yet many contemporary political commentators treat the Constitution as a document whose meaning is plain and obvious. An op-ed in the New York Times, criticizing President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, informs us that “Trump doesn’t get to decide what the Constitution means.” The writer argues that...

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If Only FTX Could Use the Fed’s Accounting

2025-04-01

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2025-04-01

The Federal Reserve continues to lose money—$77.6 billion last year according to the Wall Street Journal. The previous year the nation’s central bank lost $114.3 billion. And, there is no end in sight. The Fed is paying 4.4 percent on $3.4 trillion in reserves while earning only 2.6 percent on its securities portfolio. This is a side effect of ZIRP. Two years ago, Thomas L. Hogan wrote in The Hill, “The Fed is bankrupt.” As of January 6, the Fed’s...

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Who Owns the Gold?

2025-04-01

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2025-04-01

“Economics, in its most elegant form, is the study of cause and effect.”—John Rogers, Voting in Context: A Brief Economic History of American PoliticsIn 1933, people thought the world was ending and urged government to do whatever it could to relieve the pain of the Depression. In compliance thereof, FDR issued Executive Order 6102 on April 5, 1933 “forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental...

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McMaken Talks Gold Reserves on the ‘World Affairs in Context’ Podcast

2025-04-01

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2025-04-01

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...

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Federal Spending in 2025 Is on Track to be the Highest Ever

2025-04-01

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2025-04-01

For the first five months of the 2025 fiscal year, federal spending is coming in at the highest level ever. This is true even when we adjust for CPI inflation. This largely reflects Biden-era spending since the current fiscal year began during October 2024, during the Biden administration. In 2025 dollars, federal spending for the current fiscal year so far has totaled 3.039 trillion dollars. This makes 2025’s spending total the highest ever...

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Warren Buffett Gets It Wrong

2025-03-31

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2025-03-31

Berkshire Hathaway—the investment holding company run by Warren Buffett for the last sixty years—released its much-awaited annual report in late February. In the report, Buffett himself delved into the topic of capitalism and America’s relationship thereto. Early in the preamble to the report, Buffett hints at the connection between inflation and government malfeasance:Paper money can see its value evaporate if fiscal folly prevails. In some...

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First They Came for the Op-Ed Writers

2025-03-31

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2025-03-31

On March 25, six masked federal agents seized a Turkish graduate student on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Rumeysa Ozturk—who was wearing a hajib—is a Fulbright scholar working on a doctorate at Tufts University.She was abducted and vanished into the maw of the federal prison system. The Trump administration ignored a federal court order and took Ozturk from Massachusetts to Louisiana federal detention facilities.But the Trump...

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Do Inflationary Expectations Cause General Increases in Prices?

2025-03-31

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2025-03-31

Many believe the key cause to a general increase in prices are so-called “inflationary expectations.” For instance, if there is a large increase in the prices of oil, individuals will start forming expectations for higher inflation ahead. Consequently, individuals will speed up their purchases of goods and services at present, thereby raising the demand for goods and services, all other things being equal. This is supposed to set in motion general...

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Britain—Like France and Spain—Is Poorer than Mississippi

2025-03-31

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2025-03-31

Over the past year, pundits and columnists have been forced to keep asking why Europe’s economy is stagnating and falling behind the US economy. Many of those asking the question are Europeans. One European headline reads “Why Europe is falling behind the USA,” and Le Monde tells us that compared to the United States, “The gap with European living standards has never been wider.”The gap between US and European living standards has been noticeable...

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How to End Drug Violence

2025-03-31

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2025-03-31

Recently President Trump threatened to invade Mexico—all in its best interest, of course—in order to smash the drug cartels that are responsible for funneling so many illegal drugs into the US. There is no doubt that the drug cartels are wealthy and vicious criminals. Apparently they have taken over major towns and provinces in Mexico and have assassinated local officials and anyone else trying to curb their “trade.” Is there any alternative to...

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Even the Inventor of GDP Statistics Knew Government Spending Was Dubious

2025-03-30

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2025-03-30

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...

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Free Trade with All Nations

2025-03-29

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2025-03-29

Richard Cobden (1804-1865) was a British member of Parliament who championed free trade, the repeal of the Corn Laws, and a laissez-faire economy.[A speech delivered in Manchester, England, January 15, 1846]I shall begin the few remarks which I have to offer to this meeting by proposing, contrary to my usual custom, a resolution; and it is, “That the merchants, manufacturers, and other members of the National Anti-Corn-Law League claim no...

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The Saint-Simonians in Our Midst: Ben Bernanke and the GFC

2025-03-29

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2025-03-29

Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), a French intellectual, was one of the founding fathers of socialism. Saint-Simon wanted to forge a “scientific understanding of society” which he would use to eliminate poverty and inequality by centrally planning the economy through the Parisian Banking Houses.In this article, I argue that Ben Bernanke—along with his other two musketeers, Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner—are Saint-Simonians par excellence,...

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Free Trade in the Twenty-First Century

2025-03-29

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2025-03-29

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...

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Skin Tone Products, Markets, and “White Privilege”

2025-03-28

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2025-03-28

The first time I read about “white privilege” in college was on a Blackboard assigned readings list. This was not a class I attended, but had access to in order to provide some help to the professor. As it turned out, I had read the original paper on this topic: Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies” (1988).While many critiques could be made—and have...

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Foreign Aid, Reparations, And Economic Growth

2025-03-28

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2025-03-28

Developing countries in Africa and the Caribbean continue to press the United Kingdom for reparations, believing that financial compensation will rejuvenate their economies. However, history has demonstrated that large inflows of money from rich nations have failed to spur sustained economic growth. Africa alone has received over $1 trillion in aid, yet economic performance across the continent remains disappointing. Similarly, Commonwealth nations...

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The Struggle for Liberty

2025-03-28

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2025-03-28

[The Struggle for Liberty: A Libertarian History of Political Thought by Ralph Raico. Edited by Ryan McMaken. Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2025; 287 pp.]Ralph Raico was the foremost historian of classical liberalism and one of Murray Rothbard’s closest followers. In 2004, he gave a series of ten lectures at the Ludwig von Mises Institute that were very well received, but the lectures were never printed. We have Ryan McMaken to thank for making them...

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Economic Illiteracy Handicaps Britain’s New Right Wing Party

2025-03-27

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2025-03-27

While much has been written about the “vibe shift” in America since Trump’s reelection, an almost equal feeling of change has recently been felt in British politics. Following the Conservatives’ landslide defeat in July 2024, the incoming Labour government’s popularity collapsed almost as soon as they took office.This general discontent with the major parties, combined with an increasing focus on immigration, seems tailor-made to benefit Reform...

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Herbert Hoover, Enemy of Free Markets

2025-03-27

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2025-03-27

American History is the source of many enduring myths. George Washington didn’t chop down the cherry tree, Abraham Lincoln did not free the slaves (or even end slavery in this country), and Jim Crow was not the natural heir to post-war policies in the South in the 1860s and 70s. But myths persist, not because of any truths inherent in them, but because certain people find it advantageous to promote them. And perhaps there is no greater myth being...

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