Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

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Isaac Newton’s Place in the History of Economic Thought

2025-02-19

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2025-02-19

Isaac Newton is certainly one of the most important scientists in human history—mathematician, physicist, astronomer, philosopher, and theologian. In the second half of his life, he discovered the world of economic sciences, focusing on monetary economics. His story is not very different from the one of Copernicus. Newton put himself at the service of his country, studying coinage, to successfully solve the economic crisis which was afflicting it....

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Mortgage Markets and Crony Capitalism

2025-02-19

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2025-02-19

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Sacrificing Truth on Leviathan’s Altar

2025-02-19

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2025-02-19

Last Sunday, 60 Minutes featured tyrannical German prosecutors boasting about persecuting private citizens who made comments that officialdom disapproved. Three prosecutors explained how the government was entitled to launch pre-dawn raids and lock up individuals who criticized politicians, complained about immigrant crime waves, or otherwise crossed the latest revised boundary lines of acceptable thoughts.In a craven slant that would have cheered...

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Could 1929 Happen Again?

2025-02-19

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2025-02-19

The 1929 Stock Market Crash led to the largest economic recession in modern world history. Today’s octogenarian Americans knew of the vast devastation started by the stock market crash from first hand witnesses—their parents.All Americans suffered. Those with assets lost all or a substantial portion of their portfolio. A third of workers lost jobs. Tens of thousands of firms went broke, including banks, retail stores and manufacturing plants. New...

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Downsizing Government

2025-02-19

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2025-02-19

In a bold and transformative move, President Donald Trump announced his administration’s intention to downsize the federal government by offering compensation to federal workers who voluntarily resign. This policy aims to enhance the efficiency of the American economy by reducing bureaucratic inertia and reallocating human capital to more productive sectors. While the proposal has sparked controversy, it represents a crucial step towards fostering...

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Trump’s Revival of Lincoln’s “Colonization” Plan

2025-02-18

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2025-02-18

Now that the US and Israeli military has bombed almost all of Gaza into a smoldering ruin and killed tens or hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, President Trump has proposed getting Jordan and Egypt to house the remaining Palestinians. He has threatened to withdraw US taxpayer “aid” to these countries if they do not accept his proposal. This is essentially a revival of Lincoln’s lifelong dream of deporting or “colonizing” all of the black people...

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Trade War with China Threatens America’s Bubble Economy

2025-02-18

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2025-02-18

Donald Trump’s coming trade war with China could ultimately topple the current US economic regime of monetary inflation which enables America’s bubble-monopolist capitalism. The road, though, is unlikely to be direct or smooth.Some trade warriors argue that the economic war with China will improve the prospects for US prosperity by stimulating onshoring of industrial activity.   Critics argue that, in so far as onshoring occurs there is likely to...

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Can We Really Cut Half of the Military Budget? You Bet!

2025-02-18

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2025-02-18

The wailing sound you heard last Thursday was the chorus of the Beltway warmongers shrieking in despair at President Trump’s suggestion that there was no reason for the United States to be spending one trillion dollars on “defense.”“…[O]ne of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia, and I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half. And we can do that, and I think we’ll be able to do...

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The Technocracy Movement and Howard Scott

2025-02-18

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2025-02-18

The 20th century was full of ideological movements. Were we to look at American-made political movements alone, we can see the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the several Civil Rights Movements coupled with 60s Radicalism, Reagan-era American Conservatism, and closing the century off with a weird mixture of Bush-Clinton-Bush-era Conservatism and Liberalism. One American-made political movement that is not talked about enough, however, is...

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The Great Burt Blumert

2025-02-18

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2025-02-18

February 11 would have been the 96th birthday of Burt Blumert, one of my greatest friends and a great champion of Rothbardian libertarianism. (He actually died in 2009.) Some of my readers, especially the younger generation, might not recognize his name, because Burt was a quiet man who worked to do good behind the scenes. In this week’s column, I’m going to tell you about Burt—both what he did and what he was like as a person.Burt is an example of...

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Statist Egalitarianism and Patriotism

2025-02-17

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2025-02-17

In his 1963 essay, “The Negro Revolution,” Murray Rothbard observes that by the 1930s and 1940s American intellectuals had embraced two principles:(1) all races and ethnic groups are intellectually and morally equal or identical, and (2) that therefore no one should be allowed to treat anyone else as if they were not equal, i.e., that the State should be used to compel absolute equality of treatment among the races.As Rothbard points out, the first...

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Purchasing Power and the International Demand for Dollars

2025-02-17

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2025-02-17

Often various factors are perceived to be important in determining a currency rate of exchange. For instance, for some commentators an increase in the government foreign debt is regarded as pointing to a likely deterioration in economic fundamentals ahead. This provides the rationale for the selling of the currency of concern.For many economists, the state of the balance of trade is a key factor in the currency exchange rate determination. On this...

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Trump Must Cut Millions of Tax-Funded “Private” Jobs

2025-02-17

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2025-02-17

Three weeks ago, the Trump administration sent out an order to the executive branch calling for federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance” that could conflict with President Donald Trump’s agenda. The order primarily targeted federal dollars doled out to so-called non-governmental organizations, often called “NGOs.” The effect on many NGOs was immediate. Many...

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Common Sense, Then and Now

2025-02-16

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2025-02-16

Today, I will sign a series of historic executive orders. With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It’s all about common sense. — President Donald Trump’s inaugural address, January 20, 2025 (emphasis added)Presidents other than Trump have invoked the appeal of “common sense” in their inaugural address, though, in the case of George W. Bush, it carried the message of perpetual war:We...

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The Fed Has Stopped Pretending that Price Inflation Is Going Away

2025-02-15

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2025-02-15

At its September 2024 meeting, the Fed’s FOMC cut the target federal funds rate by a historically large 50 basis points and then justified this cut on the grounds that “The Committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent, and judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance.”The FOMC again cut the target rate in November and then again in December. Each time,...

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Tariff Increases vs. Tax Cuts

2025-02-15

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2025-02-15

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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The Fallacy of the “Public Sector”

2025-02-14

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2025-02-14

[This article is excerpted from Economic Controversies, chapter 21, “The Fallacy of the ‘Public Sector’” (2011). It originally appeared in the New Individualist Review (Summer, 1961): 3–7. Editor’s note: Various media outlets are reporting that the Trump administration has cut more than 100,000 federal jobs in recent days. The total may even be greater than 200,000. Naturally, the regime’s defenders repeatedly tell us that this all means a great...

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The Panic of 1819: Rothbard v. Browning

2025-02-14

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2025-02-14

The Panic of 1819 was one of the first major economic and financial crises in American history. The panic led to widespread bank failures, unemployment, and distress, particularly in the western states. For decades, the only significant work to have examined this event in any depth was Rothbard’s The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies. Now, Rothbard finally has some company in Andrew Browning’s The Panic of 1819: The First Great Depression. And...

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Osama bin Laden’s Secret Weapon: Economic Literacy

2025-02-14

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2025-02-14

While acknowledging his great evils, future strategists and historians will one day likely recognize Osama bin Laden’s strategic acumen. With minimal resources or technology, Osama bin Laden managed to create immense socioeconomic damage and nearly destroy both of his main enemies—the “godless” Communist Soviet Union and the Zionism-supporting United States. Bin Laden achieved this using only one simple weapon, a basic understanding of economics,...

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Truth and Reconciliation: Be Careful What You Wish For

2025-02-14

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2025-02-14

An early mentor once warned me, “If the public knew the truth, the markets would be cut in half.” Decades later the stock market has soared tenfold, but so has the deceit.We have a new administration coming in with a central promise of “truth.” Trump has placed what some call “radicals” in charge of key agencies and departments. The good news: this bold strategy may be the only way to cut through the noise to find the truth. The challenge: the...

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