Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

Revisionist History of War Conference

“Truth is the first casualty of war.” This saying is said to have its origins in ancient Greece, in the writings of the playwright Aeschylus. Thus, for thousands of years it has been recognized that most wars are wars of conquest through mass murder, plunder, and destruction. For the ruling classes, war is an opportunity. For the citizens, war means death or crippling injury, taxes, debt, sacrifice, and loss of freedoms. Hence the need for...

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FDR: The Man, the Leader, the Legacy

Part 1: Early YearsAs we approach the end of the 20th century, the figure of Franklin Roosevelt looms ever more imposing in the minds of Americans. In the two centuries or so of our history, it has happened that a few of our leaders—a very few—became symbols of some powerful idea, one that left a permanent imprint on the life of our country. Thomas Jefferson is one such symbol. With Jefferson, it is the idea of a free, self-governing people,...

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France’s Problem Is Not the “Far Right.” It Is Socialism. A Warning For All.

Following the European elections, French credit default swaps have soared to a post-2020 record of 39 points. Many commentators blame the rise of the National Front for market turmoil, which has sent all euro area spreads higher. However, none of this would have happened if France’s debt was low, finances were strong, and the euro area economies enjoyed healthy economic growth.France is the world’s poster child for statism. The same statism that...

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Does Justice Sotomayor Write Her Decisions in Crayon?

Following last week’s decisions, which represented a significant blow to the American administrative state, today, the Supreme Court did what was widely expected: rule in favor of Donald Trump in a case related to federal prosecution over January 6. In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that presidents have “presumptive immunity” for “official acts” while in office.The decision does not necessarily kill the potential for federal prosecution, kicking...

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Robert Reich’s Blind Spots: The Elephant in the Progressive Left’s Room

Robert Reich is on his fifth myth, but so far, he has just been recycling the same progressive talking points in each one. The overall message is that big corporations and the super wealthy wield too much political power and that they shape the law in their own favor, contributing to terrible economic inequality. For Reich, the U.S. economy is a zero-sum game and the people at the top have rigged it so they win and everybody else loses.His solution...

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Chop the Federal CHIPS Act

The Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden in August 2022 funds the CHIPS for America Act that was initiated under the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act signed into law by President Donald Trump in January 2021. The 2021 legislation authorized the Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, and Department of State to develop onshore...

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Help End the Fed on Lew Rockwell’s 80th Birthday

Lew Rockwell has dedicated his life to spreading the ideas of the Austrian School. Today, we honor Lew on his birthday, and it’s only fitting we release the trailer for our new documentary, Playing with Fire: Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve. With your help, we will release it to the public right before the election.Over forty years ago, Lew visited with Margit von Mises at the Russian Tea Room in New York City with a vision: an institute...

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The Alleged Failed Coup in Bolivia Was Actually a Political Maneuver by a Failed Socialist Regime

This week on Wednesday 26th at around 2:30 of the afternoon military forces in ski masks took Plaza Murillo, the main plaza where the seat of the Bolivian government resides. Actions that at first seemed totally out of the ordinary, actions taken from history books, as a military coup has not happened since the 1980’s. However, the truth of the matter is much more complex than what the official government and international news outlets let on.After...

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Julian Assange and the Struggle for Political Freedom

Julian Assange’s heroic but tragic life has taken an unexpected turn for the better with his recent liberation through a plea deal with the US government. It must never be forgotten that the Wikileaks founder was a successful publisher and a prized journalist, and yet was at risk of being extradited to the United States to be charged with espionage and imprisoned for life. Though many people around the world have followed Assange’s hardships on and...

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Playing with Fire: Official Trailer

Ludwig von Mises’s life was dedicated to intellectually combating the evils of socialism, interventionism, inflationism, and tyranny. He recognized that it would always be an uphill battle. Easy money creates artificial good times that empower and enrich the political class; cleaning up the mess after that is difficult.The only solution is for the public to understand the game, to be empowered to see past the cheap political rhetoric, and to...

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Human Ignorance Is an Unstable Basis for Liberty and Praxeology

In his review of F.A. Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty, Murray Rothbard takes issue with the Hayekian case for freedom, which rests solely on human ignorance. On this view, reason is dogmatic and tends to lead to totalitarianism, with arrogant despots claiming they have the knowledge to rationally and efficiently plan the social order. As Joe Salerno has shown, Ludwig von Mises took a different approach.In contrast to the Hayekian stress...

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The Coming US Budget Disaster Will Impoverish Americans

Deficit spending is not a growth tool. It is the recipe for stagnation.The latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) budget and economic outlook estimates show the extent of the challenges of the United States fiscal nightmare.The CBO expects a budget deficit of $1.9 trillion in 2024, a year of alleged robust economic growth and record tax receipts. They expect revenues to reach $4.9 trillion, or 17.2 percent of GDP, in 2024, which will rise to 18.0...

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Rushing for the Financial Exits

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Reality Is NOT a Social Construct

Human behavior is, to a large extent, socially constructed. People often act based on social norms, expectations, or habits rather than by attempting to ascertain the nature of reality itself. In that context, it is true to say that people’s perceptions of reality are socially constructed, as explained by the Thomas theorem:Another way of looking at this concept is through W.I. Thomas’s notable Thomas theorem which states, “If men define situations...

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The Impact of Interest Rates on Economic Growth: An Austrian Perspective

For many years, the relationship between interest rates and economic growth has been a major focus of economic theory and policy discussions. According to Austrian theory, interest rates are an important signal in a market economy that balances the time preferences of borrowers and savers, not only a tool that central banks can manage in an effort to maintain economic stability. Severe economic distortions and malinvestments may result from...

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Debate Recap: The Funeral of Joe Biden

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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Why Assange Was Released

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property...

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How a Limited State Becomes an Unlimited, Administrative State

[Editor’s Note: This week, a new ruling from the US Supreme court chipped away at the administrative powers of the federal bureaucracy. The case, Loper Bright Ent. vs. Raimondo, largely overturned the 1984 Chevron ruling which had solidified the bureaucracy’s power to interpret laws for itself. That is, rather than require the bureaucracy to seek rulings from federal judges on the interpretation of laws, the US Supreme court in Chevron ruled that...

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Biden’s Debate Performance Was Revealing

Last night, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump faced off in Atlanta in what’s supposed to be the first of two presidential debates. Each man had essentially one job. Trump needed to appear stable enough to counter the characterization his opponents have built up of an unhinged maniac who is dead set on tearing the country down to nurse the hit his ego suffered in 2020. And Trump did a perfectly good job at that. Biden, on the...

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It All Began When the Government Tried to Make Housing More Affordable

I attended a neighborhood association meeting recently on the inner west side of San Antonio. The concerns were probably not unlike those of residents in other United States urban centers: crime, public intoxication, vagrancy, etc.One that drew a notable response from the local councilwoman was the cost of housing. This issue provides a good example of how actions of the federal government trickle down and leave collateral damage in our...

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