Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

The Second Housing Bubble of the 21st Century Is Over

[Originally published in the Housing Finance International Journal.] The 21st century, only 23 years old, has already had two giant, international housing bubbles. It makes one doubt that we are getting any smarter with experience. Among the countries involved in the second bubble, both the U.S. and Canada fully participated in the newest rampant inflation of house prices. Prices this time reached levels far above those of the last boom peak. In...

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Objection, Professor Harari! Logic Proves the Existence of Free Will

Yuval Noah Harari, professor of history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is not only a best-selling author but also a top advisor to Klaus Schwab, founder and front man of the World Economic Forum (WEF). In 2018, Harari wrote: “Unfortunately, ‘free will’ isn’t a scientific reality. It is a myth inherited from Christian theology.” And, in a 2019 interview, Harari said: Humans today are a hackable animal—an animal that can be hacked. . . . Hacking...

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Help the Institute Build the Foundations of Liberty. Donate before 2023!

Forty years ago, I was worried. I had had the honor of working with Ludwig von Mises. But, not long after his death, the greatest economist and defender of freedom in the twentieth century was being ignored. Some years before, I had worked for the great Neil McCaffrey at his Arlington House Publishers. One day, I was called into his office and asked, “How’d you like to be Ludwig von Mises’s editor?” I was to correct and bring back into print three...

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The Great Leap Backward*

[This piece is an excerpt from Chapter 13 of The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda, to be released January 10, 2023.] This chapter derisively refers to the notorious Great Leap Forward (1958–1961) as the Great Leap Backward. But China’s Great Leap Forward is not the ultimate object of my scorn. That scorn is reserved for the contemporary project conducted by people, who, if they knew anything about history, or...

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US Labor Market: Help Wanted!

As we enter the holiday season stock owners have been the big losers of 2022, but jobs are still plentiful and nominal wages are rising rapidly. The Wall Street Journal reports “Stiff Demand Drives Gains in Jobs, Wages” (December 4). Faced with a stagnant stock market, nothing bolsters confidence more than the plethora of job openings, seemingly everywhere, and for all types of jobs. The number of job openings is a statistic worth paying attention...

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Woodrow Wilson’s Christmas Grift of 1913

We think of thieves as conducting their work when no one is looking, such as breaking into a house while the owners are away. But the most successful thieves have done their stealing in plain sight, on a grand scale, while the owners were home and often with their tacit approval, though with sleights of hand that few are able to detect. Such a theft occurred when Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law on December 23, 1913. A central...

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The Origins of the Federal Reserve

Where did this thing called the Fed come from? Murray Rothbard has the answer here — in phenomenal detail that will make your head spin. In one extended essay, one that reads like a detective story, he has put together the most comprehensive and fascinating account based on a century's accumulation of scholarship. The conclusion is that the Fed did not originate as a policy response to national need. It wasn't erected for any of its stated...

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Reclaiming the Anti-State Roots of Christmas

While Christians the world over look to the celebration as a way to remember the incarnation of Christ, some dismiss it as a Christianized version of the ancient Rome’s Saturnalia. Whatever one’s view happens to be, I humbly suggest that it ought to be used by Christians and non-Christians alike as a reflection upon a collision of two kingdoms and two forms of rule. One that makes the way for life, and the other for misery, suffering, and death. If...

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How Christmas Became a Holiday for Children

During the 1980s, millions of American children pored over the Toys 'R' Us catalog, daydreaming about what toys we hoped to receive in a few weeks on Christmas morning. After all, by the mid twentieth century, Christmas—for countless middle-class households with children— had become more or less synonymous with an enormous number of gifts for children in the form of toys and games. Barbie playsets and a myriad of action figures were routinely...

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How Marxism Abuses Ethics and Science to Deceive Its Followers

In his 1922 book on socialism, Die Gemeinwirtschaft, Ludwig von Mises attributes socialism’s attractiveness to the claim that Marx’s doctrine would be both ethical and scientific. In truth, however, Marxism represents a metaphysical dogma that promises an earthly paradise yet threatens civilization itself. Thesis of the Inevitability of Socialism Marxism explains that immoral capitalist economies will necessarily be replaced by socialist systems...

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Budget Deficit Hits Monthly Record Due to Biden’s Policies

America’s “monthly federal deficit hit a record $249 billion in November—$57 billion more than the same month last year—with federal spending also hitting new heights in consecutive months, while tax revenues dropped,” reports the London Daily Mail. The deficit is $57billion higher than it was in November of 2021—which is a record-breaking year-on-year change. Federal spending is up $28billion from last year to $501billion in November 2022,...

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Money Laundering: Another Noncrime Pursued by Criminal Authorities

Money laundering is illegal in the USA, but like so many other federal crimes, it is difficult to identify and define. That is the perfect recipe for government abuse of innocent people. Original Article: "Money Laundering: Another Noncrime Pursued by Criminal Authorities" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Since Covid Lockdowns, New York Lost More of Its Population than Any Other State

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has frequently bragged that Florida is in high demand among people looking to relocate. In a new report released this week from the Census Bureau, it seems that he's been correct. According to the Bureau's report:  After decades of rapid population increase, Florida now is the nation’s fastest-growing state for the first time since 1957, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2022 population estimates released...

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R.G. Collingwood on the Collapse of Civilization

R.G. Collingwood, a philosopher, historian, and archaeologist who taught at Oxford in the first half of the twentieth century, was much esteemed by Ludwig von Mises, especially for his essay “Economics as a Philosophical Science” and, more generally, for his work in the philosophy of history. In this week’s column, I’d like to consider a point that Collingwood makes in his “Fascism and Nazism,” published in Philosophy in 1940, that helps us answer...

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Jeff Deist on What 2023 Portends

This week's show features a bare-knuckle discussion between Jeff and José Niño of "El Niño Speaks" on the biggest political, economic, and cultural events of 2022—and what they portend for 2023. You don't want to miss Jeff's unvarnished thoughts on the Left, the Right, the economy, and what is sure to be a turbulent New Year. Read José's Substack: josbcf.substack.com [embedded content]

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The Reichsbank: Germany’s Central Bank Lays Foundation of Monetary Disaster

Long before there was the infamous German inflation of 1923, the Reichsbank created the scenario of monetary debasement. Original Article: "The Reichsbank: Germany's Central Bank Lays Foundation of Monetary Disaster" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Notes from the Digital Gulag

As the author of Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom, I guess I should not be surprised to find myself squarely in the digital gulag—banished, perhaps permanently, from Twitter and Facebook. Twitter permanently suspended my account several weeks ago, mere days before Elon Musk took over the helm. Although I cannot be sure, I may have been banned because I suggested that the transgender movement is part of a...

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Grover Cleveland Presented the Best Example of a True Liberal Populist

Six years after the election of Donald Trump, the Republican Party is still adrift. On the one hand, the GOP has embraced an antiestablishment and populist message. On the other hand, Republicans have not quite figured out how to balance populism with classically liberal values like constitutionalism and free markets. Indeed, populism and classical liberalism seem to be in direct conflict.

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Student Debt: It Is and Has Been a Personal Choice

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear plaintiff and defendant oral arguments for Biden v. Nebraska in February 2023. That case will determine whether the Biden administration has the constitutional authority to forgive student loan debt and thereby make taxpayers responsible for the debts that students have incurred.

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Secession: Why the Regime Tolerates Self-Determination for Foreigners, but Not for Americans

Opponents of secession in the United States often choose from several reasons as to why no member state of the United States should be allowed to separate from the rest of the confederation. Some antisecessionists say it’s bad for national security reasons. Others oppose secession for nationalistic reasons, declaring that “we”—whoever that is—shouldn’t “give up on America.”

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