Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org
How Politicians Use Regulations to Deflect Blame
Thanks to their adoring media, politicians create crises and then blame businesses for them. And the political "solutions" are worse than the original problems.
Original Article: "How Politicians Use Regulations to Deflect Blame"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.
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Wisdom from a Yenta
Left Is Not Wokeby Susan NeimanPolity Press, 2023; 155 pp.
There is much to dislike in this book. Susan Neiman, a former philosophy professor who now heads the “Einstein Discussion Group” in Potsdam, is a socialist who has good things to say about Communist East Germany and parrots every anticapitalist cliché in the book. I have blasted some of her work in earlier reviews. In Left Is Not Woke, though, she makes some good points, and I’m going to...
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With the Feds, It’s the Fox Guarding the Henhouse
Bob is joined by guest Peter St. Onge to discuss how SVB's CEO, as well as Bernie Madoff, had key positions advising the Fed and SEC. Then they discuss how we should think about central banks losing money.
How the SEC was Charmed by Madoff: Mises.org/HAP389a
Bob's Understanding Money Mechanics: Mises.org/HAP389b
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The Outbreak of World War I: A Libertarian Realist Rebuttal
One excuse that political elites give when they drag nations into war is that the conflict was "inevitable" or "unavoidable." Ralph Raico knew better.
Original Article: "The Outbreak of World War I: A Libertarian Realist Rebuttal"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.
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Credit Suisse Collapsed Because of Government Intervention, Not Despite It
Credit Suisse, one of the fifty largest banks in the world, has joined the long list of Western banks over the past two decades that have been rescued from the brink of failure and subsequently acquired by a larger financial institution.
After comments from the chairman of the Saudi National Bank triggered the evaporation of almost a third of the megabank’s market capitalization, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced the creation of a new...
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Submission Guidelines for the Mises Wire
The Mises Wire depends on unaffiliated contributors for a significant proportion of its content. We welcome submissions from everyone, regardless of educational achievements and other credentials, so please send us your essays!
We’re looking for short articles that approach real-world economic issues from an Austro-libertarian perspective (read: not just theory). We also accept history and sociology pieces that make use of Austrian or libertarian...
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The Pentagon’s Budget from Hell
On March 13th, the Pentagon rolled out its proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The results were—or at least should have been—stunning, even by the standards of a department that’s used to getting what it wants when it wants it.
The new Pentagon budget would come in at $842 billion. That’s the highest level requested since World War II, except for the peak moment of the Afghan and Iraq wars, when the United States had nearly 200,000...
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Does Cost Cutting Undermine Economic Growth?
Keynesian economists claim that cutting costs in a business slowdown is counterproductive. As usual, the Keynesians have it backward.
Original Article: "Does Cost Cutting Undermine Economic Growth?"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.
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Elizabeth Warren’s Contradictory Demands for Easy Money and Strict Financial Regulation
As the financial ripples following the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) continue to run through the financial sector, a predictable voice has weighed in on the affair, and, as always, giving bad advice. Elizabeth Warren, never one to skip a chance to publicly gnaw on a financial carcass, writes in the New York Times that the entire problem is lack of government regulation. Of course.
The US senator from Massachusetts has spent most of...
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The Last Lie Government Will Ever Tell
Western governments seem to relish a clash with Russia, despite the specter of nuclear war. If so, it will be a conflict built on government lies.
Original Article: "The Last Lie Government Will Ever Tell"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.
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Understanding the Difference between Praxeology and Psychology
It has been proposed that praxeology has potential not only as the foundation for growing the Austrian school of economics but other sciences as well. The utility of Austrian economics is immense, and similar achievements in other domains would be welcome.
However, it seems like a difficult task, as demonstrated by a recent effort to expand praxeology to psychology. The present article discusses the scope and power of praxeology and the conditions...
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Governments Can’t Blame Inflation on Energy and Putin Anymore
At the end of February 2023, the price of oil (WTI and Brent), Henry Hub and ICE natural gas, aluminum, copper, steel, corn, wheat, and the Baltic Dry Index are below the February 2022 levels.
The Supply Chain Index and the global supply-demand balance, published by Morgan Stanley, have declined to September 2022 levels. However, the latest inflation readings are hugely concerning.
Considering the previously mentioned prices of commodities and...
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Democracy Created Canada’s Lethal Healthcare System
Canadian politicians tout their healthcare system as morally superior to private medicine. There is nothing moral about relegating thousands of people to death each year for lack of medical care.
Original Article: "Democracy Created Canada’s Lethal Healthcare System"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.
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Is It Real Money or Just Artifice?
In his 1884 article “Mind as a Social Factor,” Lester F. Ward attacked the laissez-faire doctrine in an “inversion of values” that would have made Friedrich Nietzsche blush. “But how shall we distinguish,” Ward asked,
this human, or anthropic, method from the method of nature? Simply by reversing all the definitions. Art is the antithesis of nature. If we call one the natural method we must call the other the artificial method. If nature’s process...
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Karl Marx Was Not an Economist
Karl Marx may have been a philosopher or just someone with an opinion. He was not, however, an economist.
Original Article: "Karl Marx Was Not an Economist"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.
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Politics Is Turning Us into Idiots
Political correctness in Western societies fosters polarization and a toxic culture of ignorance. Although people are rightly outraged by the cancellation of prominent figures, the most glaring consequence of political correctness is the proliferation of ignorance. When speakers are cancelled for contradicting sacrosanct opinions, this leads to an environment where people never arrive at the truth because ideas are not disputed in the public...
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Economics from the Ground Up: Intellectual Community in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
The Ralph Raico Memorial Commencement Lecture.
Recorded at the 2023 Austrian Economics Research Conference hosted at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, March 16–18, 2023.
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The Austrian Economics Research Conference is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian School, bringing together leading scholars doing research in this vibrant and influential intellectual tradition. The conference is hosted by...
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Did Colonialism Impoverish Africa and Asia? Perhaps Not
Decolonization is a popular academic and media buzzword. But is colonialism actually responsible for poverty in developing countries? This question deserves an honest answer.
Original Article: "Did Colonialism Impoverish Africa and Asia? Perhaps Not"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.
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To Fight the State, Build Alternatives to the State
Throughout its history, liberalism—the ideology today called “classical liberalism” or “libertarianism”—has suffered from the impression that it is primarily against things. This is not entirely wrong. Historically, liberalism coalesced as a recognizable and coherent ideology in opposition largely to mercantilism and absolutism throughout Western Europe. Over time, this opposition extended to socialism, protectionism, imperialism, aggressive...
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Why Most of the World Isn’t on Board with the NATO-Russia War
As the war in Ukraine drags on into its second year, protest demonstrations have been taking place in major European cities. They express the growing sentiment that the people are tired of the protracted conflict and fearful of what could come should the war continue even longer. Memories of the catastrophic world wars that ravaged Europe in the first half of the last century and the terrible threat of nuclear annihilation that divided the...
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