Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

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Much of the World’s Oil Is Owned by Governments. There’s No Good Reason for This.

2023-06-29

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2023-06-29

It is as if the average human assumes that a coercive governance must be established or assigned despite the fact that such a government is often not very efficient or even involved in the outcomes we ultimately want, peace and prosperity. —Walter Block and Stefan Sløk-Madsen, “Who Should Own the North Pole?“ In many oil-producing countries, governments own the resource (namely, oil) that they’re extracting. Whether this is a favorable state of...

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How US States Could Pave the Way for Currency Competition

2023-06-29

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2023-06-29

The US dollar has been the world reserve currency since 1944. At the Bretton Woods Conference, the dollar was pegged to gold and every other currency was pegged to the dollar. The fixed exchange rate system that emerged provided a stable environment for international trade and investment, as all countries had a currency value that was, directly or indirectly, tied to a fixed gold price. The system began to unravel in the 1970s due to economic...

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Disarm All Federal Agents

2023-06-29

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2023-06-29

There are now more armed civilian federal agents than there are US Marines. These well-funded armies of federal enforcers from the alphabet agencies are there to be used against US citizens at the whims of federal policymakers. Every last one of them should be disarmed.  New Radio Rothbard mugs are now available at the Mises Store. Get yours at Mises.org/RothMug  PROMO CODE: RothPod for 20% off

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The Trouble with the Constitution and the “Social Contract”

2023-06-28

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2023-06-28

Politics is of its very nature biased in favor of intervention and planning. Even in its “minarchist” or “night-watchman” version, politics is based at root on the idea that some decisions must be made coercively and imposed on unwilling minorities — or even majorities, as the case may be. This is contrary to the principle we observe in private life every day: the consent of both parties is necessary for a transaction to take place. The state never...

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It’s Raining Entrepreneurship at a Taylor Swift Concert

2023-06-28

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2023-06-28

While rain at an outdoor concert is a nuisance for most attendees, a few entrepreneurs saw not "pennies from heaven," but dollars. Original Article: "It’s Raining Entrepreneurship at a Taylor Swift Concert"

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Producers, Not Consumers, Are the Engine of Economic Growth

2023-06-28

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2023-06-28

Keynesian economists believe that recessions occur because of a weakening in aggregate demand, so boosting demand will end the downturn. Whenever an economy shows signs of weakness, most experts believe that increasing aggregate demand will prevent the economy from sliding into a recession. Since private spending is declining, Keynesians say the government should counterbalance this decline by increasing government spending on goods and services....

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David French Gets to Sit with the Cool Kids at the NYT Lunch Table

2023-06-28

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2023-06-28

New York Times columnist David French likes to think of himself as an honest broker. In reality, his "Never Trump" mentality leads him to overlook government lawbreaking. Original Article: "David French Gets to Sit with the Cool Kids at the NYT Lunch Table"

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The Reality of the Market Process

2023-06-28

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2023-06-28

As we enter the dog days of summer, I have heard several media conversations and a few private ones that express exasperation over languishing capital markets. Why do things take so long to unravel? What will happen next? When will X, Y, or Z happen? Why are tech stocks so bullish now? The market takes time to process the information that it already has — or is in "process" — and everyday brings new data. The Austrian perspective...

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Housing Prices Are Falling As Reality Sinks In

2023-06-28

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2023-06-28

The local paper’s headline posed the question, “Do renters have the upper hand in Las Vegas right now?” “[The apartment project] offered us two weeks of no rent to get us moved in on the timeline we wanted,” said a renter who was also given passes to the Life Is Beautiful music festival as part of the deal. “They also throw resident events every month providing food and entertainment,” she added. Las Vegas Review-Journal business reporter Patrick...

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You Can’t Depend on the State to Maintain Public Order

2023-06-27

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2023-06-27

Crime is increasing in American cities, but don't count on police to protect you. The Defund the Police movement has less to do with that than most people think. Original Article: "You Can’t Depend on the State to Maintain Public Order"

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Daniel Ellsberg Was Right. So Are Assange and Snowden.

2023-06-27

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2023-06-27

Daniel Ellsberg died on June 16, and he remains one of the nation's most prominent whistleblowers who leaked secret government information to the public. Upon his death the general consensus among the writers of memorials for Ellsberg was that he was right to leak government secrets. As the editorial board at The Orange County Register recently put it, he was "a true American hero."  They're right about Ellsberg. During the Vietnam War,...

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The MMT-and-Bailey Fallacy

2023-06-27

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2023-06-27

One hears this kind of thing from modern monetary theory (MMT) advocates whenever their economic theories are attacked: “We say not spending constrained,” they grumble, “We don’t mean ‘now spend’.” However, what politicians hear is that they can have anything they really want because they can just print the money for it. “It’s a fact,” an MMTer might say. “Sovereign governments with their own currencies can never go bankrupt. They can always print...

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A Great Man Cannot Salvage a Bad Idea

2023-06-27

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2023-06-27

Einstein might have been one of history's most brilliant men, but even his great mind could not have made socialism work. Unfortunately, he wasn't smart enough to see that. Original Article: "A Great Man Cannot Salvage a Bad Idea"

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Do Boycotts Really Work? Another Look at the Bud Light Situation

2023-06-27

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2023-06-27

For the past ten weeks, American conservatives have been boycotting Bud Light in response to a beer can featuring transgender figure Dylan Mulvaney. Since then, sales of the beer have been plummeting. However, this week, a new benchmark has been passed: Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud Light is no longer the top-selling beer in the United States. Instead, it has been overtaken by Modelo, as the following graph from the Wall Street Journal shows: Source:...

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Radical Decentralization Was the Key to the West’s Rise to Wealth and Freedom

2023-06-27

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2023-06-27

It is not uncommon to encounter political theorists and pundits who insist that political centralization is a boon to economic growth. In both cases, it is claimed the presence of a unifying central regime—whether in Brussels or in Washington, DC, for example—is essential in ensuring the efficient and free flow of goods throughout a large jurisdiction. This, we are told, will greatly accelerate economic growth. In many ways, the model is the United...

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Yet Another Month of Questionable Federal Jobs Data as 310,000 Fewer People Report Having Jobs

2023-06-26

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2023-06-26

In 2023, self-employment has collapsed again with year-over-year self-employment growth dropping by 6.5 percent. That's the largest drop since December 2007, when the Great Recession officially began. Original Article: "Yet Another Month of Questionable Federal Jobs Data as 310,000 Fewer People Report Having Jobs"

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Myth #4: Every Time the Fed Tightens the Money Supply, Interest Rates Rise (Or Fall)

2023-06-26

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2023-06-26

Recorded by the Mises Institute in the mid-1980s, The Mises Report provided radio commentary from leading non-interventionists, economists, and political scientists. In this program, we present another part of "Ten Great Economic Myths". This material was prepared by Murray N. Rothbard. The financial press now knows enough economics to watch weekly money supply figures like hawks; but they inevitably interpret these figures in a...

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Is Social Justice the Progressive Equivalent of Rent-Seeking Behavior?

2023-06-26

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2023-06-26

The term “rent seeking” is a derogatory term that implies companies and people seek to take more than they earn. It hearkens to some Marxist ideology as well. However, especially when combined with regulatory capture and bureaucratic corruption, rent seeking is a valid concept. What happens when the shoe is on the other foot and people and organizations engage in rent seeking from a social justice perspective? Is it rent seeking or corruption for...

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My Long Journey to Rothbardian Sobriety

2023-06-24

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2023-06-24

Everything possible is done to prevent the fraud of the monetary system from being exposed to the masses who suffer from it. —Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), before the US House of Representatives, February 15, 2006 In the mid-sixties, having read about gold in Atlas Shrugged, I decided to find out something about inflation and wrote to the United States Treasury Department to request a brochure that purported to lay inflation out in terms anyone could...

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The Eurozone Falls into Recession as “Stimulus” Fails

2023-06-24

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2023-06-24

Investor sentiment is clearly bullish. The CNN Fear and Greed Index for June 18th, 2023, stood at 82, which signals “extreme greed”. This is a drastic optimistic move after closing at “greed” (56 over 100) a month before and “extreme fear” (17 over 100) only one year ago. However, in the same period, the Citi global economic surprise index has declined twelve points, with the euro area component collapsing 123 points. The US economic surprise index...

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