Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

Reflections on the Libertarian Role in Society

As the recent election of Javier Milei in Argentina shows us, there still is a place in the political world for libertarian thinking. Liberty is a goal still worth pursuing. Original Article: Reflections on the Libertarian Role in Society

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What is Money? Who Controls Money?

What Is Money? Who Controls It? Gold is money! Silver is money! Everything else is credit! J. P. Morgan famously said this in his testimony before Congress in 1912: “Gold is money. Everything else is credit.” J. P. Morgan was the founder of JPMorgan Chase & Co., an American multinational financial services company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest bank in the United States and the world’s largest bank by market capitalization as...

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Contra Krugman, Policies of Countering Unemployment Are Costly

When the economy goes into a recession, most economic commentators believe that the government and the central bank should take steps to counter the rise in unemployment. Some economists believe that lowering unemployment can be achieved without any cost, given that the unemployed workers are idle. According to Paul Krugman, “If you put 100,000 Americans to work right now digging ditches, it is not as if you are taking those 100,000 workers away...

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US Foreign Policy Is a Far Cry from the Founders Intent

In July 2021, the Watson Institute of Public Affairs at Brown University reported that since September 11, 2001, 7,057 US military personnel have been killed in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Civilian contractor deaths reached 8,000, although the institute admits this is an estimate considering many contractors were not US citizens, so some deaths went unreported. Finally, 30,177 US service members would commit suicide after...

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Washington’s Planned Theft of Credit Card Benefits

Our vacation airline tickets in September were funded by accumulated miles on our Alaska Airlines credit card. While on vacation this summer, my brother-in-law graciously hosted eight of us for dinner. He tried to downplay the generous hospitality by saying he had just gotten his “cash back” award from his credit card company. The “cash back” credit card had accumulated a tidy sum of money, paying for a very nice dinner. At home in Brookfield, a...

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The December Jobs Report Is Mostly Bad News

The job market is still hanging on—but not nearly as well as the headline numbers and media pundits would have you believe.  Original Article: The December Jobs Report Is Mostly Bad News

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The Government Is Making the Economy Appear Better than It Is

By borrowing money and “creating” new jobs, the government is creating the illusion of a strong economy. This does not end well. Original Article: The Government Is Making the Economy Appear Better than It Is

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The Decisive Driving Force to Victory for Javier Milei

Javier Milei has begun his presidency by taking action against much of Argentina’s vast welfare state. One hopes it is the beginning to a successful term in office. Original Article: The Decisive Driving Force to Victory for Javier Milei

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Can Classical Economics Explain the Approaching Fiscal Disaster?

There is a lack of buyers for US Treasury debt. Rating agencies have recently downgraded the US debt, and entitlement benefits’ “trust funds” will go into the red in a few years. The classical economists offer few answers to the depth of this problem.  Original Article: Can Classical Economics Explain the Approaching Fiscal Disaster?

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Measure 110 and Property Rights

In this week's episode, we replay Mark's recent appearance on the Rob Taylor Report. Mark and Rob take a deep look at the practical impact of socialist ideology in Oregon when mixed with the partial "decriminalization" of all hard drugs in the state.  The main issues they discuss are the lack of respect for private property rights, and woke government causing social chaos in Oregon; but, it's a lesson for everyone, everywhere....

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Legacies of Injustice and Racial Inequality

This article is a revised version of a talk given at the Oxford University Mises Society on January 16, 2024. The talk drew upon themes discussed in David Gordon and Wanjiru Njoya, Redressing Historical Injustice: Self-Ownership, Property Rights and Economic Equality (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). Supporters of free market capitalism are often thought, wrongly, to be unconcerned about human well-being. On the contrary, it is precisely because we are...

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Are Free Market More Dangerous than Regulated Markets?

As a frequent X/Twitter user, I follow a variety of accounts that touch on a number of niches: whether that is economics, finance, Catholicism, college football . . . or in this case, Lord of the Rings. A popular Twitter account that regularly shares content related to J.R.R. Tolkien’s work broke from character to offer an insight on another tweet. In the tweet he refers to, a food inspector is shown interrupting the business of a diner, which the...

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WAITT, Are We Really All in This Together?

Acronyms—LOL, PIN, ASAP, CAPTCHA, RADAR, LASAR, SCUBA, and others that combine the initial letters of other words, the whole being pronounced as a single word—have become part of the English language. Let’s coin another one: WAITT (no, that’s not a misspelling of WAIT), an acronym for “We’re All in This Together.” The five-word phrase itself appeared in the early weeks of the pandemic that began in early 2020. Although the pandemic has officially...

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Human Action Conference 2024

Students apply for a scholarship here. "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...

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Peter St. Onge On Who’s Taking Your Money

Economist Peter St. Onge summarizes some of the major financial and government news stories of the day. Bob's Mises University Talk 'Price Inflation: Corona vs. QE': Mises.org/HAP432a   Join Tom DiLorenzo, Joe Salerno, and Patrick Newman in Tampa on February 17: Mises.org/Tampa2024Use code "Action24" for 15% off admission.   Human Action Podcast listeners can get a free copy of Murray Rothbard's Anatomy of the State: Mises.org/HAPodFree...

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The United States Is a Colonial Empire, and an Extremely Successful One

For those who remember their high school textbooks, the issue of America's imperial history is very clear cut. American imperialism, the textbooks told us, was that fairly brief period in American history that lasted from 1898 to 1945. This was the period during which the United States acquired a number of overseas territories, including the Philippines and Puerto Rico, among others. The era of imperialism, we are told, ended in 1945 when the...

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Don’t Let Your Adversaries Raise Your Children

Socialist Antonio Gramsci’s “long march through the institutions” describes the slow and gradual intellectual capture of a society through its influential and powerful institutions, including the church, media, the arts, corporations, schools, and universities, eventually leading to full infiltration. It takes little awareness to realize that these strategies have succeeded. In the United States, all of Gramsci’s institutions are now socialist in...

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If One Wishes to Discredit Capitalism, One Should at Least Understand How It Works

Socialism: A Logical IntroductionScott R. SehonOxford University Press, 2024; 268 pp. This is a better book than I expected it to be, but it is not without its problems. Scott Sehon, a philosophy professor at Bowdoin College, is strongly inclined to believe that socialism is better than capitalism, but in the book, his main aim is to set forward some of the main arguments in favor of each system, indicating their strengths and weaknesses. He has an...

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Climate Deniers Deny Socialism. That’s Why the Regime Hates Them.

Free markets is an unambiguous term, which implies a lack of inappropriate government intervention as consumers and firms pursue their own interest in a competitive environment. (my emphasis) —Clifford Winston, “This Economist Really Loves Free Markets”   Inappropriate government intervention is a line government finds easy to cross, much like the Constitution’s “general welfare” clause. The latter was never intended to be a provision of infinite...

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The Next Austrian School Renaissance

Having recently completed forty-one years as a university economics professor I am convinced that books like Human Action in particular, and the Austrian School in general, are more needed than ever if Western civilization is to be saved from the onslaught by the current generation of “cultural” Marxist totalitarians. All socialists, Mises wrote in Socialism, are first and foremost “destructionists” who want to destroy the existing institutions of...

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