Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org
Why I Love “Price Discrimination”
Last week, I went to a vision center to get my new eyeglass prescription filled. Because I wear progressive lenses with antireflective coating and do not have vision insurance, I anticipated that the out-of-pocket cost of the glasses would be quite high. When I entered the shop and stated my business, the manager immediately asked if I had vision insurance, and I responded that I did not.
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Review: Progressive Conservatism: How Republicans Will Become America’s Natural Governing Party
Frank Buckley is always a thoughtful and provocative author, but I disagree with what he has to say in Progressive Conservatism more than with other books of his I’ve reviewed, such as his outstanding American Secession and Curiosity.
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The Story of War and Peace in the Currency Markets
There is a story of war and peace in the contemporary currency markets. It has a main plot and many subplots. As yet, the story is without end. That may come sooner than many now expect.
The narrator today has a more challenging job than the teller of the story about neutral, Entente, and Central Power currencies during World War I. (See Brown, Brendan “Monetary Chaos in Europe” chapter 2 [Routledge, 2011].)
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Trapped by Imperialist Leviathans: The Case for Freedom in Central and Eastern Europe
In the previous articles I touched upon the question about subject of global American hegemony and its consequences for freedom. Now let’s look at the problem from another perspective. In the 1980s, Poland viewed the United States as a country capable of defeating the “Evil Empire” (USSR) and thus sowing throughout the Soviet bloc ideas of freedom that were so close to societies tormented by the yoke of communism.
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Money Does Matter: The End of the Gold Standard Led to a Lower Standard of Living
On August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon announced that the US dollar (USD) would no longer be redeemable in gold. This was supposed to be temporary. And yet, 51 years later, here we are. The gold standard was gradually destroyed in the twentieth century. Now people are experiencing the consequences: less purchasing power, more economic cycles, and a weaker economy.
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Malcolm McLean: The Unsung Capitalist Hero Who Changed the World One Container at a Time
Ask the average person what they believe to be the most economically important innovation of the twentieth century, and they’ll probably point to the internet. The internet has certainly disproved Paul Krugman’s prediction that it would have no greater impact on the economy than the fax machine, but even this transformative technology may only warrant a silver medal when compared to something much more banal: the intermodal shipping container.
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Is a Recession Simply a Decline in GDP? What Does That Mean?
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the institution that dates the peaks and troughs of the business cycles: A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP [gross domestic product], real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.
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Germany’s Nuclear Choice: Russian Energy Crisis Forces a Reckoning
“We are the makers of our own fate,” said Christian Lindner (FDP, Free Democratic Party), German federal minister of finance, in a TV interview not too long ago. This statement was made in the context of being asked if Vladimir Putin had had a hold over Germany, considering its rather dire energy situation, now, but especially going into winter.
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The Sphere of Economic Calculation
Economic calculation can comprehend everything that is exchanged against money. The prices of goods and services are either historical data describing past events or anticipations of probable future events. Information about a past price conveys the knowledge that one or several acts of interpersonal exchange were effected according to this ratio. It does not convey directly any knowledge about future prices.
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Will the US Dollar Weaken against Other Currencies?
In the July 26 Financial Times article entitled “Is the Dollar about to Take a Turn?,” Barry Eichengreen writes that the US dollar has had a spectacular run, having risen more than 10 percent against other major currencies since the start of the year. According to Eichengreen, the key reason behind the spectacular strengthening in the US Dollar is that the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates faster than other big central banks, drawing...
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Money Is Not Wealth, Nor Is Wealth Natural Resources
The misconception that money and natural resources are wealth is rampant among intellectuals and other educated individuals, and even economists. Prevailing monetary and economic policy choices reflect this entrenched misconception.
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Modern Information Control: State Intervention and Mistakes to Avoid
History: Regulation of Communications. A hundred years of the public interest standard has been applied to radio and television, with the explicit goal of protecting free speech. The very opposite was the case, as John Samples and Paul Matzko have clearly shown. A 1920–30s radio host, Bob Shuler, had exposed the Julian Petroleum Corporation’s defrauding of investors, and subsequently accused the district attorney and city prosecutor of negligence....
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Is Economic Growth Synonymous with Ecological Destruction? The NYT Gets It Wrong (Again)
According to the New York Times (NYT) article July 17, 2022, “The pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end,” a major threat to our living standard is the obsession with economic growth. Herman Daly—an economist that has been exploring for more than fifty years the relationship between economic growth and individuals’ living standards—is of the view that the pursuit of economic growth causing ecological harm.
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If Mauritius is a Tax H(e)aven, Other African Countries Must be Tax Hells
It is common for commentator to point to corruption, incompetence, malicious Western meddling, and other factors as the source of Africa’s continued economic woes. One seldom hears so-called experts point to taxes as a major impediment to economic development. Even “development economists” do not repudiate Africa’s paradoxically onerous tax regimes.
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Thomas Piketty Wants to Bring Back Communism in the Guise of Democratic Socialism
Thomas Piketty’s Brief History is the fourth installment of his assault on economic inequality, following as it does the best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century and Capital and Ideology. The third, Time for Socialism: Dispatches from a World on Fire, 2016–2021, is just a collection of popular articles based on which the New York Times dubbed Piketty a “vaguely left-of-center” economist.
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