Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

Progressive Interventionism Is Ruining American Healthcare

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is at it again: demanding government intervention in the nation's healthcare system to deal with problems caused by earlier government intervention. Original Article: Progressive Interventionism Is Ruining American Healthcare

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The Money Supply Continues its Biggest Collapse Since the Great Depression

Money supply growth fell again in October, remaining deep in negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. October's drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years. Since April 2021, money supply growth has slowed quickly, and since November, we've been seeing the money supply repeatedly contract year over year. The last time the...

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30-Year Mortgages Are Still a Sweet Deal—For People who Already Have Them

The thirty-year mortgage, of all things, came under attack in a piece by Ben Casselman in the New York Times. The three-decade fixed rate loan is, of course, a creation of the government and adds constant fuel to the US housing market. The title of Casselman’s piece calls the most popular debt instrument for home purchases “weird,” “cushy,” and “old.” He blames low interest rate thirty-year fixed loans for the broken housing market. Casselman...

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Socialism vs. Economic Freedom

[From Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow (1979), Lecture 2, "Socialism" (1958)] I am here in Buenos Aires as a guest of the Centro de Difusión Economía Libre.1 What is economía libre? What does this system of economic freedom mean? The answer is simple: it is the market economy, it is the system in which the cooperation of individuals in the social division of labor is achieved by the market. This market is not a place; it...

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The Legacy of Legacy Admissions Is Not What the Critics Claim

Critics of college legacy admissions claim that the practice is racist and admits undeserving students. The longer-term results of such admissions show why colleges continue to employ them. Original Article: The Legacy of Legacy Admissions Is Not What the Critics Claim

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Understanding Our Disharmony

One of the political trends of the past few years has been an expanding disconnect between political unity rhetoric and the increasing disharmony politicians’ proposals create. The root of this beltway cognitive dissonance is the rapid increase in government power. Unity rhetoric helps mobilize candidates’ political bases and can sway some independents, helping win elections. However, their postelection expansion of government power into areas...

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Cryptocurrency: Integrity Destroyer or Policy Scapegoat?

Is cryptocurrency a scam or is it a legitimate alternative to state-corrupted money? Political elites want to eliminate it altogether, but that alone should tell us we need to better understand this alternative money source. Original Article: Cryptocurrency: Integrity Destroyer or Policy Scapegoat?

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Paul Krugman Blames Economic Pessimism on Partisanship. He’s Wrong.

Paul Krugman can’t figure out why everybody is so bummed about the economy. From his perspective, we should all be jumping for joy, praising Joe Biden, and publicly signing fifty-year commitments to vote Democrat. Official statistics show that “unemployment is still near a 50-year low, yet inflation has been falling fast.” But the ignorant masses simply won’t get with the picture. Krugman admits “surveys of consumer sentiment and political polls...

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The Taxman Cometh

Philip Goff wants to solve the why of the universe, but his answers are not always logically coherent, as David Gordon explains. Original Article: The Taxman Cometh

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How Not to Desocialize: Argentina Edition

Argentina’s president-elect, Javier Milei, is set on implementing promarket policies, including a vast desocialization, or privatization, of the economy. The privatization of the Argentine airline industry is seemingly first on the agenda (along with privatization of state-owned media). Privatization is necessary, but above all else, it must be done correctly. Aerolíneas Argentina, the state-owned airline, makes up 63 percent of the domestic...

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The TSA Is Still Crazy after All These Years

In the past two decades, the TSA has proven it is ineffective in providing real security for airline passengers. However, its growing incompetence is matched only by its increasing intrusion into travelers' lives. Original Article: The TSA Is Still Crazy after All These Years

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The Worse-than-Medieval Economics of Climate Technocrats

Mainstream economists turned climate warriors use cost-of-production methods to determine the “true” social cost of carbon. They appeal to a discredited methodology falsely attributed to medieval Scholastics. Original Article: The Worse-than-Medieval Economics of Climate Technocrats

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The More Complex the Society, The Less Government Control We Need

Progressives claim that perhaps individual freedom might be appropriate for a simpler society but that as society grows more complex, the need for government grows. As Leonard Read pointed out, however, greater complexity requires greater freedom, not less. Original Article: The More Complex the Society, The Less Government Control We Need

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All-Time Highs!

In this week's episode, Mark looks at "All-Time Highs" in such things as stocks, real estate, and stock indexes. Housing prices hit an all-time high this week, and gold is not far behind. While all-time highs—or even "new highs"—are unambiguously good for owners of these assets, it is much more ambiguous as a signal about the future. Gold might be an exception to this rule, as Mark explains. Be sure to follow Minor...

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Review of: Deception: The Great Covid Cover-up

Ever wonder if you were living in the Dystopian States of America? Senator Rand Paul’s Deception: The Great Covid Cover-Up, published October 10, 2023, does not disarm those haunting feelings. This book is not for those who wish to place everything we have learned during the covid-19 control program in a memory hole. To the contrary, Paul is encouraging those who would pursue the truth to join him in confronting the difficult questions this period...

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Ezra Klein’s Progressivism Cannot Build Anything Socially Useful

In 1982, I had the privilege of touring East Berlin with Murray Rothbard and other delegates from the Mont Pelerin Society. At the time, the Western press heaped praise on East Germany for what progressives believed to be the many accomplishments of communism’s most celebrated regime. Unlike the more capitalistic West Berlin, East Berlin had an administered socialist economy complete with free healthcare. East Germany was proof that socialism could...

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Can Milei Really Shut Down Argentina’s Central Bank?

The monumental fiscal and monetary hole that Peronists Massa and Fernández have left for Javier Milei is difficult to replicate. Ex-president Mauricio Macri himself explained that the inheritance Milei receives is “worse” than the one he found from Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Peronism leaves a country in ruins and with a massive time bomb for the next administration. The enormous economic problems of Argentina start with a primary fiscal...

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What Would Mises Think? Austria Is Applying (Some) Austrian Economics

Austria is one part of the name “Austrian economics.” How has the country of Austria prospered by applying Austrian economic concepts? The nation regained full sovereignty in 1955. Their form of government is a parliamentary coalition with a prime minister as head of state and a ceremonial office of president. How would Ludwig von Mises view Austria today implementing Austrian economics? He would not recognize the country he fled in 1934 ahead of...

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Is ExxonMobil’s Acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources a “Threat to Democracy”?

According to a Brown University professor, ExxonMobil threatens our democratic republic by purchasing another company. The totalitarian woke atmosphere in American higher education is the real threat. Original Article: Is ExxonMobil's Acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources a "Threat to Democracy"?

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The Unknown Reasoner

How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policyby John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian RosatoYale University Press, 2023; 304 pp. How States Think surprised me. John Mearsheimer is a well-known critic of American foreign policy, and his analysis of the Ukraine war has been deservedly influential. As result, I anticipated that this book would expand his critique. The book does contain some critical discussion of American foreign policy, but, for...

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