Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

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Two More Elephants in Your Electric Vehicle

2023-07-08

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2023-07-08

On this week's episode, Mark summarizes the many problems with EVs, and focuses on two consequences funded by taxpayer subsidy. Large, overpriced, long range vehicles have been subsidized at the expense of more efficient technological applications. These EVs are significantly heavier compared to their fossil fuel counterparts (which have engines and gas tanks). These heavier vehicles create greater crash risks for passengers and pedestrians....

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To Smoke or Not to Smoke: The Cigarette Economy in Postwar Germany, 1945–48

2023-07-08

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2023-07-08

During the three years after World War II, Germans—facing a ruined economy and wildly depreciating currency—turned to cigarettes as a medium of exchange on a massive scale. Allied occupation authorities strictly forbade this black-market currency exchange, but it literally saved the lives of many German civilians—and inadvertently made many American GIs rich. The cigarette had already made its appearance during the war as a currency in both the...

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Paleoconservatives Need Better Critics

2023-07-08

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2023-07-08

Paul Gottfried is no stranger to criticism from “conservative” gatekeepers. Like his friend and colleague Murray Rothbard, Gottfried has been a target of Buckleyite conservativism ever since he was ousted from the National Review in the 1980s. Also, like Rothbard, Gottfried’s ideas have continued to inspire new generations of Americans sincerely interested in grappling with societal issues as neoconservatism has waned everywhere outside of...

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MMT’s Warren Mosler Argues Fed Rate Hikes Cause Growth and Inflation

2023-07-07

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2023-07-07

Bob walks through a recent interview of MMT champion Warren Mosler, in which he claims that Fed rate hikes lead to larger government interest expenses and hence support economic growth and inflation. Bob presents both theoretical and empirical evidence against Mosler's claims. MMT's Warren Mosler Argues Fed Rate Hikes Cause Growth and Inflation Video of MMT's Warren Mosler Argues Fed Rate Hikes Cause Growth...

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The Backstops for Banks Are Full of Holes

2023-07-07

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2023-07-07

First Republic, Signature Bank, and Silicon Valley Bank have all failed, and that’s not the only thing they have in common. Western Alliance Bank’s Ken Vecchione was jealous of these three large regional banks. The chief executive admitted to the New York Times, “We were, I have to admit, a bit envious of them.” Obviously Vecchione was and likely still is oblivious to problems at his bank and others. He doesn’t understand the fragility of...

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The GDPR Paradox: Empowering Government in the Name of Data Protection

2023-07-07

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2023-07-07

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation supposedly protects people from government data abuse. In reality, it empowers governments. Original Article: "The GDPR Paradox: Empowering Government in the Name of Data Protection"

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When Slave Owners Chose Federal Power over Local Sovereignty

2023-07-07

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2023-07-07

A recurring theme in American politics is the cynical use of federal power by those who simultaneously pretend to favor "states' rights" or "local control." We see this today when Republicans one minute say they favor local control with gun laws or Obamacare—and then demand the federal government impose nationwide drug prohibitions. We see it among Democrats who want local control over "sanctuary cities" for illegal...

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Cracked-Up Slobodian

2023-07-07

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2023-07-07

Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World without Democracyby Quinn SlobodianMetropolitan Books, 2023; 336 pp. Quinn Slobodian, a professor of the history of ideas at Wellesley College, has a good deal to say about Murray Rothbard, and I have attempted to respond to that in a review that is to be published in the next issue of The Austrian. Slobodian also includes some comments on the Mises Institute, Lew Rockwell, and...

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Socialists Should Support Government Default: Their Forebears Certainly Did

2023-07-07

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2023-07-07

Socialists like Bernie Sanders and the editors of Jacobin have decried the possible US government debt default. Marx and Lenin would have vociferously disagreed. Original Article: "Socialists Should Support Government Default: Their Forebears Certainly Did"

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Cultural Change Is Necessary for Capital Development

2023-07-07

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2023-07-07

Preserving culture is so crucial to a group’s identity that it has become sacred. For many the contents of culture don’t matter as long as they are preserved. But such a nihilistic approach to culture has led to failure and will continue to do so. Culture is a social technology that allows societies to function within a specific institutional setting. So, a constellation of traits could be useful for people living in a premodern setting but...

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America: A Nation of Debt

2023-07-06

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2023-07-06

On this episode of Good Money with Tho Bishop, Ryan McMaken joins the show to talk about America's debt crisis. Tho and Ryan discuss both the damage done to the economy by runaway government spending, as well as how Federal Reserve policy has incentivized consumption and punished savings, which has resulted in record-high credit card debt. Good Money listeners can order a special $5 book bundle that includes How To Think About the Economy...

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The Problem with Nationalism

2023-07-06

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2023-07-06

Ryan, Tho, and Kerry Baldwin take a look at why some politicians say they're "nationalists." Is nationalism a good thing or is it just another way to justify more government meddling in our lives?  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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My Forty-Year War on Reefer Madness

2023-07-06

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2023-07-06

Forty years ago last week, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner published my first attack on the federal drug war. The previous year, the Reagan administration had unleashed its “Just Say No” program, vilifying anyone who smoked a joint, sniffed the wrong powder, or used nonapproved hallucinogens. I was mortified to see Ronald Reagan—who was elected on a promise to get “government off your backs”—double-cross his supporters with what morphed into the...

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Huerta de Soto Reigns in Spain

2023-07-06

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2023-07-06

Jesús Huerta de Soto, who is professor of economics at the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid, is the leading representative of the Austrian school of economics in Spain. He is a renowned teacher, and two of his many doctoral students, David Howden and Philipp Bagus, both now themselves professors of economics, have edited a festschrift in his honor. The contributors include students, colleagues, friends, teachers, two of his daughters, and his...

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Licensing Laws Deepen South Africa’s Electricity Crisis

2023-07-06

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2023-07-06

South Africa is suffering from rolling blackouts and other power outages. These could be avoided if the government would permit competition in electricity markets. Original Article: "Licensing Laws Deepen South Africa's Electricity Crisis"

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The Major Cause of Mass Poverty in Sudan

2023-07-06

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2023-07-06

Mere days prior to its receiving renewed attention because of an ongoing civil war, Sudan and many other African countries were (and still are) being promoted by news organizations as citadels of suffering. Viewers are subjected to heart-wrenching images: The gaunt, skeletal bodies of starved children crying out in hunger. Families left with only emaciated cows, selling sticks to produce some kind of livelihood. After observing these agonizing...

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In DeLong Run …

2023-07-06

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2023-07-06

J. Bradford DeLong, who teaches economics at UC Berkeley and was a protégé of Larry Summer's dislikes Austrian economics, which he sometimes assails on his blog. You might reasonably expect that for this reason, I will lambaste his book, which, to no one’s surprise, defends Keynesian economics and the welfare state. But I’m going to disappoint expectations. The book contains a number of insights that merit highlighting, albeit accompanied by some...

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A Guide to Good Money: An Interview with Brendan Brown

2023-07-05

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2023-07-05

Ryan McMaken (RM): There is a lot of talk these days about the US losing its global monetary hegemony. But a lot needs to happen in terms of unwinding the present system before that can happen. At the heart of this seems to be what you call “globalized money without a global money.” What do you mean by that, and what does it have to do with the dollar’s global importance? Brendan Brown (BB): Globalization of money under the fiat regime magnifies...

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The Road to Civil War

2023-07-05

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2023-07-05

[This article is excerpted from a 30,000-word memo to the Volker Fund, 1961. The full memo is available in Strictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard edited by David Gordon.] The Road to Civil War The road to Civil War must be divided into two parts: the causes of the controversy over slavery leading to secession, andthe immediate causes of the war itself.The reason for such split is that secession need not have led...

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Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Demarcation of the Limits of State Activity

2023-07-05

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2023-07-05

Not many are aware that one of the greatest works against the encroachment of the state originates from a German thinker. As early as the late eighteenth century, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) raised the question of the general limits of state activity. Humboldt wrote his Ideas for an Attempt to Determine the Limits of the Effectiveness of the State in 1792. While individual sections of it appeared in the Berlinische Monatsschrift, the complete...

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