Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

The Federal Reserve is Running Losses. Does This Cost Anyone Anything?

Financial statements of the US Federal Reserve, which consists of the board of governors in Washington and twelve district reserve banks across the country, indicate that the consolidated system has generated both capital and operating losses for the past couple of years. The Fed was created in 1913 to issue and circulate an “elastic currency” that could respond to consumers’ demand for cash, end bank runs known then as “money panics,” and serve as...

Read More »

Killers of the Flower Moon Is about Government Failure

Most reviewers of the motion picture Killers of the Flower Moon distill just one lesson from the story: greed is deadly. The love of money leads to evil. But the real lesson should be of government failure. The movie follows the book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. It tells the story of the Osage tribe during the 1920s oil boom in Oklahoma. Tribal members became very wealthy because of the...

Read More »

The Parasitic Rich Men North of Richmond

Oliver Anthony's popular song, "Rich Men North of Richmond," describes the parasitic world of the Beltway. One hopes people understand the damage the political classes have done. Original Article: The Parasitic Rich Men North of Richmond

Read More »

Is Migration a Tool of the Consumptive Class?

Migration is part of the wider concept of economic freedom. This makes it desirable if prosperity is the goal of policy. But more applicable to the current attitudes and values of Western leaders than mundane economic arguments, migration presents an opportunity to increase the pool from which they extract real income. This is required in the face of poor demographics and growing socialistic ambitions. The extraction is achieved by taxation and...

Read More »

Rothbard, Milei and the New Right in Argentina

Instead of the usual statist candidates, Argentine voters have to opportunity to elect a Rothbardian who is calling for radical free-market changes in the nation's economy. Original Article: Rothbard, Milei and the New Right in Argentina

Read More »

The Interest Rate Shock Will Blow Up the Government’s Ponzi Game

In the international fixed-income markets, interest rates are rising, and the decades-long trend of declining bond yields has undoubtedly been broken. On August 2, 2022, the ten-year United States Treasury yield was 0.5 percent; on October 9, 2023, it had risen to 4.8 percent. Long-term interest rates in Europe, Asia, and Latin America have also risen sharply. The key reason for the rise in capital market interest rates is the central banks’...

Read More »

Can Electricity Providers Promise 100 Percent Green Energy? Probably Not.

Residential electricity sources are becoming yet another form of “virtue signaling.” Original Article: Can Electricity Providers Promise 100 Percent Green Energy? Probably Not.

Read More »

Destroying Liberty Through State Protection: The First Amendment

Leave it to government judges and politicians to turn constitutional protections of free speech into new ways to centralize and grow state power.  Original Article: Destroying Liberty Through State Protection: The First Amendment

Read More »

Monetary Chaos

On this week's episode, Mark addresses how we the people can prevent the government and the Federal Reserve from grabbing more power and implementing their own preferred "solutions" to economic issues. This is the third round of monetary chaos the Fed has subjected us to in recent history—a history from which valuable lessons can be learned. Be sure to follow Minor Issues at Mises.org/MinorIssues.

Read More »

Thinking outside the State

Modern minds are so oriented toward state power that people often fail to understand there is a better way. Instead of “thinking outside the box,” we should think outside the state. Original Article: Thinking outside the State

Read More »

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...

Read More »

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...

Read More »

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...

Read More »

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...

Read More »

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

Read More »

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...

Read More »

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...

Read More »

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...

Read More »

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

Read More »

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...

Read More »