Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

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How Washington Hawks Helped Create the New “Axis of Evil”

2023-11-08

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2023-11-08

In 2002, President George W. Bush cited the now famous “axis of evil”—Iraq, Iran, and North Korea—as he tried to get the American people to look beyond those responsible for the 9/11 attacks and greenlight a global military campaign to “rid the world of the evil-doers.” The result was the $8 trillion global war on terror that continues to this day. Now, in the wake of the Hamas attacks in southern Israel one month ago, the same language is being...

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What is Software Quality? An Austrian Approach

2023-11-07

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2023-11-07

Even something that seems as objective as software development falls under the Austrian view of subjective utility. Original Article: What is Software Quality? An Austrian Approach

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Rothbard: Understanding the History of Banking from an Austrian Perspective

2023-11-07

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2023-11-07

A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II by Murray N. Rothbard Edited with an Introduction by Joseph T. Salerno (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2002; 510 pages) A History of Money and Banking in the United States comprises a collection of essays written by Murray N. Rothbard and compiled and edited by Joseph T. Salerno. It is the most comprehensive and enlightening treatise on the history...

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There’s No Easy Way Out of This Debt Spiral

2023-11-07

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2023-11-07

We're about six weeks into fiscal year 2024, but if this year looks anything like last year, we can assume the federal government will continue to pile up debt at astonishing rates.  According to the September Monthly Treasury report, the US government accumulated an additional 1.7 trillion dollars in debt for the 2023 fiscal year, which ended October 31.  That' up by $319 billion, or 23 percent, from the 2022 fiscal year. As recently as June,...

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Israel Isn’t the Brilliant Friend of Freedom the Beltway Claims It to Be

2023-11-07

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2023-11-07

It certainly wasn’t the only time calling a perceived ally of DC a democracy became a tradition with India. While India could have been the first non-European “ally” to receive such treatment since the heydays of the Cold War, the immense support India currently enjoys despite a litany of human rights violations will never outclass the kind of prowess Tel Aviv has from the grassroots and political elite in the Beltway. Between the dying enthusiasm...

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Fighting the Surveillance State Begins with the Individual

2023-11-07

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2023-11-07

Fed up with the state's surveillance regime? There are ways to use available technology to frustrate government efforts to spy on you. Original Article: The Parasitic Rich Men North of Richmond

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The Federal Reserve is Running Losses. Does This Cost Anyone Anything?

2023-11-07

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2023-11-07

Financial statements of the US Federal Reserve, which consists of the board of governors in Washington and twelve district reserve banks across the country, indicate that the consolidated system has generated both capital and operating losses for the past couple of years. The Fed was created in 1913 to issue and circulate an “elastic currency” that could respond to consumers’ demand for cash, end bank runs known then as “money panics,” and serve as...

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Killers of the Flower Moon Is about Government Failure

2023-11-06

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2023-11-06

Most reviewers of the motion picture Killers of the Flower Moon distill just one lesson from the story: greed is deadly. The love of money leads to evil. But the real lesson should be of government failure. The movie follows the book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. It tells the story of the Osage tribe during the 1920s oil boom in Oklahoma. Tribal members became very wealthy because of the...

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The Parasitic Rich Men North of Richmond

2023-11-06

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2023-11-06

Oliver Anthony's popular song, "Rich Men North of Richmond," describes the parasitic world of the Beltway. One hopes people understand the damage the political classes have done. Original Article: The Parasitic Rich Men North of Richmond

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Is Migration a Tool of the Consumptive Class?

2023-11-06

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2023-11-06

Migration is part of the wider concept of economic freedom. This makes it desirable if prosperity is the goal of policy. But more applicable to the current attitudes and values of Western leaders than mundane economic arguments, migration presents an opportunity to increase the pool from which they extract real income. This is required in the face of poor demographics and growing socialistic ambitions. The extraction is achieved by taxation and...

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Rothbard, Milei and the New Right in Argentina

2023-11-06

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2023-11-06

Instead of the usual statist candidates, Argentine voters have to opportunity to elect a Rothbardian who is calling for radical free-market changes in the nation's economy. Original Article: Rothbard, Milei and the New Right in Argentina

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The Interest Rate Shock Will Blow Up the Government’s Ponzi Game

2023-11-06

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2023-11-06

In the international fixed-income markets, interest rates are rising, and the decades-long trend of declining bond yields has undoubtedly been broken. On August 2, 2022, the ten-year United States Treasury yield was 0.5 percent; on October 9, 2023, it had risen to 4.8 percent. Long-term interest rates in Europe, Asia, and Latin America have also risen sharply. The key reason for the rise in capital market interest rates is the central banks’...

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Can Electricity Providers Promise 100 Percent Green Energy? Probably Not.

2023-11-05

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2023-11-05

Residential electricity sources are becoming yet another form of “virtue signaling.” Original Article: Can Electricity Providers Promise 100 Percent Green Energy? Probably Not.

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Destroying Liberty Through State Protection: The First Amendment

2023-11-04

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2023-11-04

Leave it to government judges and politicians to turn constitutional protections of free speech into new ways to centralize and grow state power.  Original Article: Destroying Liberty Through State Protection: The First Amendment

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Monetary Chaos

2023-11-04

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2023-11-04

On this week's episode, Mark addresses how we the people can prevent the government and the Federal Reserve from grabbing more power and implementing their own preferred "solutions" to economic issues. This is the third round of monetary chaos the Fed has subjected us to in recent history—a history from which valuable lessons can be learned. Be sure to follow Minor Issues at Mises.org/MinorIssues.

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Thinking outside the State

2023-11-04

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2023-11-04

Modern minds are so oriented toward state power that people often fail to understand there is a better way. Instead of “thinking outside the box,” we should think outside the state. Original Article: Thinking outside the State

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Hostage Extraction Needs to be Privatized

2023-11-04

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2023-11-04

Amidst hostage scenarios, like the Hamas situation, it is important to remember why governments should not pay to have their nationals released. Paying for hostages to be released creates a perverse incentive in which more people are taken hostage to receive more payments. This is undoubtedly a subpar outcome. Furthermore, any effort by governments to reclaim hostages makes their country’s nationals more prone to being taken hostage. Payments and...

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Contra CATO: COVID-19 Vaccinations Are Not a Free Market Victory

2023-11-04

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2023-11-04

In light of Nobel Prizes being given to two researchers of mRNA covid-19 vaccinations, beltway establishments like that of the Cato Institute have lauded praises onto the decision. To Cato, as evidenced by a blog post by Ian Vásquez, the production of these vaccines was a “victory of globalization!” Whilst it certainly required a vast scale of global resources and networking, it was hardly what one could consider a free market victory. The...

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October’s Sobering Jobs Report Adds to Mounting Bad Economic News

2023-11-04

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2023-11-04

The Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) released new jobs data on Friday. According to the report, seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs rose 150,000 jobs in October, month over month. The unemployment rate rose slightly from 3.8 percent to 3.9 percent over the same period.  The headline payroll increase of 150,000, however, was possibly among the best news to be found in today's new jobs data, however. Once we delve more deeply into the numbers, we...

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Affective Polarization Is Making Us Dumber

2023-11-03

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2023-11-03

Last month, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University announced that it was laying off almost all of its staff, in spite of having received almost $55 million in funds in the last three years. Critics have jumped on Kendi’s fall to renew arguments that he’s a grifter or a “midwit,” but there’s another underappreciated aspect to Kendi’s fall. Kendi always struck me as someone who had the raw intellectual horsepower to...

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