Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

Hostage Extraction Needs to be Privatized

Amidst hostage scenarios, like the Hamas situation, it is important to remember why governments should not pay to have their nationals released. Paying for hostages to be released creates a perverse incentive in which more people are taken hostage to receive more payments. This is undoubtedly a subpar outcome. Furthermore, any effort by governments to reclaim hostages makes their country’s nationals more prone to being taken hostage. Payments and...

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Contra CATO: COVID-19 Vaccinations Are Not a Free Market Victory

In light of Nobel Prizes being given to two researchers of mRNA covid-19 vaccinations, beltway establishments like that of the Cato Institute have lauded praises onto the decision. To Cato, as evidenced by a blog post by Ian Vásquez, the production of these vaccines was a “victory of globalization!” Whilst it certainly required a vast scale of global resources and networking, it was hardly what one could consider a free market victory. The...

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October’s Sobering Jobs Report Adds to Mounting Bad Economic News

The Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) released new jobs data on Friday. According to the report, seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs rose 150,000 jobs in October, month over month. The unemployment rate rose slightly from 3.8 percent to 3.9 percent over the same period.  The headline payroll increase of 150,000, however, was possibly among the best news to be found in today's new jobs data, however. Once we delve more deeply into the numbers, we...

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Affective Polarization Is Making Us Dumber

Last month, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University announced that it was laying off almost all of its staff, in spite of having received almost $55 million in funds in the last three years. Critics have jumped on Kendi’s fall to renew arguments that he’s a grifter or a “midwit,” but there’s another underappreciated aspect to Kendi’s fall. Kendi always struck me as someone who had the raw intellectual horsepower to...

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Making Money While Making Sense of Chaos: Understanding the World of the Traders

Robert Murphy explains how traders make money in a world of uncertainty and diabolical risk. Original Article: Making Money While Making Sense of Chaos: Understanding the World of the Traders

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The Fake China Threat

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop are joined by Joseph Solis-Mullen of the Libertarian Institute to discuss his new book, The Fake China Threat and Its Very Real Danger. Joseph debunks some of the most prominent myths about China, provides historical context for modern tensions, and outlines the real threats the "China myth" poses to Americans. "So Much Hot Air: The (Fake) China Threat Strikes...

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Blaming the Free Market (Even Where It Doesn’t Exist)

Critics of the free market often aim at the wrong target. They assail the market for “failures” that are actually the result of government intervention in the economy. In this week’s column, I’d like to discuss an example of this mistake in Angus Deaton’s Economics in America (Princeton, 2023). Deaton was the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for economics, about which he says: As many previous recipients have reported, the experience is both...

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A Nigerian Scholar Evangelizes Austrian Economics

"Econ Bro" (who wishes to remain anonymous) is a Nigerian scholar who realized the limits of his conventional economics training and then discovered the work of Murray Rothbard and other Austrians. He now seeks to help his country and the world by spreading the truth. Econ Bro's Article on The State as a Rejection of God Part 1: Mises.org/HAP420a Econ Bro's Article on The State as a Rejection of God Part 2: Mises.org/HAP420b...

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Don’t Fall for Biden’s Latest Talking Point

President Biden claims that spending money to send weapons and ammunition around the world is good for the US economy. Original Article: Don't Fall for Biden's Latest Talking Point

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Liberty: Stifled by the Stockholm Syndrome

“Whenever and however [government] is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers.” (emphasis added) —John Jay, “Federalist No. 2” “Like breathing, [government] is not permitted to depend on our volition. Necessity will force it on all communities in some one form or another.” —John C. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or...

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Coauthor of War College Journal Article Tries to Backtrack on Call for “Partial Conscription”

At the end of September, I reported how a recent article in the Army War College academic journal examined lessons learned from the war in Ukraine and that one of the most concerning was the claim that the military might need to reinstate the draft in order to wage a high-intensity war. I argued at length that this was an example of the military laying the groundwork to resume the draft and laid out the reasons why it might be necessary from the...

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Back to the Future Morphs into Dystopia

Thanks to the exponential growth of government and regulation, the optimistic society of Back to the Future is fast becoming the dystopian world of Escape from New York or Death Wish.

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The Current US Economic Situation from an Austrian Viewpoint

This article is a brief analysis of the US economic situation from the point of view of the Austrian School of Economics. It is strictly macroeconomic: a deductive hypothesis of what is happening in the aggregates. Let us place ourselves in the months immediately after the arrival of covid-19, the first quarter of 2020. As an economic policy measure, the US government decided to increase the money supply. Through different mechanisms, they put an...

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The Spirit of the Establishment Will Thrive under a “Populist Opposition” Government

Is a true populist US government on the horizon? Probably not. Original Article: The Spirit of the Establishment Will Thrive under a "Populist Opposition" Government

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A Fed-Induced “Neutral” Interest Rate Is a Contradiction in Terms

The New York Federal Reserve said on Tuesday, September 5, 2023, that the estimate for the neutral rate for Q2 has eased to 0.57 percent from 0.68 percent in Q1. Analysts typically translate that rate into a real-world setting by adding the neutral rate to the Fed’s 2 percent inflation target. The current reading suggests that a federal funds rate of around 2.5 percent would represent a neutral setting. Given that the Fed’s current target rate...

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The Objective Science of Subjective Value

While most economists admit that value is subjective, they still err by concentrating on scarcity and choice instead of purposeful action by individuals. Original Article: The Objective Science of Subjective Value

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Turkey Is Sustaining Major Inflation. Something Has to Give

Bloomberg reports that price inflation in Turkey was more than 60 percent in September. The 61.5 percent reading was released by the Turkish government’s statistical office. Being on the ground in Turkey for Hans-Hermann and Gülçin Hoppe’s Property and Freedom Society meeting, I can say the vibe was not hyperinflationary. The shelves are not empty and the port city of Bodrum is booming. Professor Hoppe told the crowd Bodrum has grown from a...

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Thanks to the Combination of the Fed and IP, Snow White 2024 Is a Terrible Movie

Because Federal Reserve policies distort the economy and create perverse incentives, Disney also must deal with intellectual property issues. The combination of the two will ruin the Snow White story. Original Article: Thanks to the Combination of the Fed and IP, Snow White 2024 Is a Terrible Movie

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Don’t Fall for Biden’s Latest Talking Point

As the long-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia stalls and a new war in Gaza draws the world’s attention, American support for funding Kyiv’s war has waned. In an effort to reverse this, the Biden administration is changing its messaging. A Politico report from last week details how White House aides are now telling members of Congress to sell Americans the lie that continuing to send money and weapons to Ukraine is good for the...

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How German Exports Lost the Race with China

Germany is the euro area’s economic powerhouse and most competitive economy. It accounts for close to 30 percent of the euro area gross domestic product (GDP) and has recorded sizable current account surpluses since the introduction of the euro. Substantial fiscal and labor market reforms in the early 2000s propelled the German economy. However, these golden days seem all gone now. Years of misguided energy policies—part of the government’s...

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