Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

Filter archive by: Show All Show only Articles Show only Videos

Do We Really Want to Go There? A Michigan Jury Endorses Vicarious Criminal Liability

2024-02-10

by

2024-02-10

A Michigan jury this past week convicted Jennifer Crumbley of “involuntary manslaughter” after her then-fifteen-year-old son Ethan shot and killed four of his classmates at Oxford High School in 2021, using a gun that his parents had given to him as a present. Ethan had suffered from depression and other mental health issues before his deadly actions, and hindsight obviously tells us that he should not have been given a gun in the first place, but...

Read More »

What Can We Learn from the Latest Pentagon Audit? Both Plenty and Not Much

2024-02-09

by

2024-02-09

No one was surprised last November when the Pentagon failed its sixth audit, serving up a sorry record of zero and six. The accomplishment received little mainstream media coverage. Scott Ritter excoriated his former employer (and mine) over the fraud, pointing out that the money wasted and the scope of the United States military activity is so massive, it is nearly incomprehensible to most Americans. Ritter points out that audits are done by...

Read More »

“Nonsense on Stilts”: The Rhetorical Cornerstone of the American Welfare/Warfare State

2024-02-09

by

2024-02-09

In a 1922 essay about Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in his book Prejudices: Third Series H.L. Mencken asked, “Am I the first American to note the fundamental nonsensicality of the Gettysburg Address”? One example of the nonsense of Lincoln’s rhetoric as explained by Mencken is as follows: “Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their...

Read More »

Responding to James Lindsay’s Critique of “National Divorce”

2024-02-09

by

2024-02-09

Bob goes solo to give a point-by-point rebuttal to James Lindsay's recent essay arguing that "national divorce means national suicide." Bob argues that James employs inconsistent claims and ignores the tremendous economic boon to an independent Texas. James Lindsay's Article "National Divorce is National Suicide": Mises.org/HAP434a Bob's Book "Common Sense: The Case for an Independent Texas": Mises.org/HAP434b...

Read More »

The Dangerous Consequences of the German Historical School

2024-02-09

by

2024-02-09

Ludwig von Mises spends a good deal of time attacking the German Historical School of Economics in Human Action and other works. The doctrines of the school are no longer influential, although as the philosopher and economist Birsen Filip notes in her recent book The Early History of Economics in the United States: The Influence of the German Historical School of Economics on Teaching and Theory (Routledge, 2023), things were once different....

Read More »

The Double-Edged Sword of School Choice

2024-02-09

by

2024-02-09

School Choice has become a hot button political topic, especially for right-wing America. Conservatives, libertarians, and everyone that is to the left of the Democratic Party have grown increasingly more skeptical of the public education system. Between ideological indoctrination, what might be rightfully described as “grooming” into social contagions, and declining educational gains, public education has demonstrated its utter failures. The...

Read More »

Vilfredo Pareto, Pessimistic Follower of Molinari

2024-02-09

by

2024-02-09

One prominent person rarely associated by scholars with the Bastiat-Ferrara laissez-faire school was the eminent sociologist and economic theorist, Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto (1848-1923). Pareto was born in Paris into a noble Genoan family. His father, the Marchese Raffaelle Pareto, a hydraulic engineer, had fled Italy as a republican and supporter of Mazzini. The senior Pareto returned to Italy in the mid-1850s and gained a high rank in the...

Read More »

On Decolonizing Property Rights

2024-02-08

by

2024-02-08

One of the most destructive aspects of the “decolonize” movement is its insistence that scientific principles are as subjective as cultural beliefs. Decolonizers argue that the natural sciences—physics, mathematics, chemistry, and biology, along with computer science—should be analyzed from different ethnic and racial perspectives. For example, students in a field designated as “Afrochemistry” are taught to “implement African American sensibilities...

Read More »

Ryan McMaken vs. Libertarian Imperialists

2024-02-08

by

2024-02-08

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop do a recap of Ryan's debate at LibertyCon on the question of national divorce. Tho and Ryan address some of the libertarian arguments against secession, as well as the larger divide between libertarians like David Boaz and Rothbardians on matters of voluntary association. Discussed on the Show  Ryan's debate — Will a National Divorce Lead to More Individual...

Read More »

After Trump, Then What?

2024-02-08

by

2024-02-08

The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with. —Joseph Heller, Catch-22 Austrians call it high time preference. In psychology it’s an area of research called future orientation. Hall of Fame football coach George Allen expressed it as “The future is now.” Almost everyone seems born with it, and a growing number don’t outgrow it. Today in American politics, it is strongest among one faction in...

Read More »

A Field Guide to Dubious Fact-Checking

2024-02-07

by

2024-02-07

Fact-checking has become a veritable industry in the media. However, the conclusions of “fact checkers” mysteriously seem to align with the opinions of elites. That’s their story, and political, educational, and social elites are sticking to it. Original Article: A Field Guide to Dubious Fact-Checking

Read More »

Government Banks Would Be a Dangerous Tool for Progressive Ideologues

2024-02-07

by

2024-02-07

Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced legislation to create government-owned banks, ostensibly to “increase accountability.” In truth, the banks would exist to fund progressive causes. Original Article: Government Banks Would Be a Dangerous Tool for Progressive Ideologues

Read More »

Social Media Should Not Be Blamed for the Consequences of Democracy

2024-02-07

by

2024-02-07

Social media tends to be blamed for the overall nastiness of public discourse. Instead of condemning this form of communication, condemn the fuel that feeds this conflagration: democracy. Original Article: Social Media Should Not Be Blamed for the Consequences of Democracy

Read More »

Social Insecurity: It’s Not Wrong to be Concerned about Facts

2024-02-07

by

2024-02-07

A December 19, 2023, article by Brett Arends on MarketWatch caught my eye with the oh-so-clickable title of “This Is the Scariest Number for Social Security.” Given the fact that many corporate media articles today focus on pointing out to the rubes how their senses are wrong and, gosh golly, everything is just peachy, it did not shock me to learn that Mr. Arends was not referring to the program’s unfunded liabilities or the projected depletion of...

Read More »

Forget Being the World’s Policeman; the Federal Government Can’t Even Keep DC Safe

2024-02-07

by

2024-02-07

As the US federal government works to “bring peace” to the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and East Asia, it faces a rather embarrassing problem. There is currently a historic wave of violent crime battering the residents of Washington, DC. With 274 homicides, 2023 was the deadliest year for the city since the 1990s. Shootings, carjackings, and armed robberies also jumped in the nation’s capital. Parts of DC have been unsafe for a long time, but the...

Read More »

Money-Supply Growth Has Stabilized as Stealth Liquidity Keeps Bubbles on Life Support

2024-02-06

by

2024-02-06

Money supply growth fell again in December, remaining deep in negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. December's drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years. Since April 2021, money supply growth has slowed quickly, and since late 2022, we've been seeing the money supply repeatedly contract, year over year. The last time...

Read More »

Understanding the Trump Phenomenon: It’s Not What the Elites Think

2024-02-06

by

2024-02-06

Donald Trump has won the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary and is leading in the polls to become the Republican candidate for the presidency in the upcoming general election. His status as the most likely contender to challenge Joe Biden is upsetting establishment figures who think that Trump’s ascent threatens democracy. Trump is constantly pilloried by the mainstream media as a demagogue who emboldens the racist underbelly of American...

Read More »

Affirmative Action, Jewish Quotas, and Academic Central Planning

2024-02-06

by

2024-02-06

Race-based affirmative action began with President John Kennedy's 1961 creation of a Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC). Following that, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Then in 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11246 that prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, religion and national origin by organizations that received federal contracts.  In what is considered the first legal...

Read More »

Bastiat versus MMT

2024-02-06

by

2024-02-06

One doesn’t need to search modern economic literature to take on the MMT crowd. Just read Bastiat. Original Article: Bastiat versus MMT

Read More »

Rising Interest Rates and the “Great Reset” Bubble

2024-02-06

by

2024-02-06

While the “Great Reset” involves an unholy alliance between governments and big businesses, implementing its policies is impossible without central banks suppressing interest rates. Now that rates are rising, people are finding firsthand the real costs of the “Great Reset.” Original Article: Rising Interest Rates and the "Great Reset" Bubble

Read More »