Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

Canada’s Impotent Justice System Is the Product of Dysfunctional Canadian Democracy

Violent crime is on the rise in Canada, and its progressive democracy is helpless to stop it. Further empowerment of the state makes things worse. Original Article: "Canada's Impotent Justice System Is the Product of Dysfunctional Canadian Democracy" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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From Discipline to No Discipline: The Sorry Evolution of Modern Banking

Every decade or so bank failures and the subsequent bailout response via central bank intervention appear. The latest jangling of depositor nerves involved US regional banks and a certain Swiss bank of great systemic importance. As James Grant writes in his book Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian, “In economics, the most ostensibly rigorous of the social sciences, progress–and error, too–are cyclical; we keep stepping on the same...

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With the Trump Indictment, America Is a Step Closer to Being a Banana Republic

Democratic politicians and supporters are cheering the Trump indictment, but the entire process has been so politicized that its legitimacy is easily called into question. Original Article: "With the Trump Indictment, America Is a Step Closer to Being a Banana Republic" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Arbitrary Use of Power: Punishing Those Who Expose Not-So-Secret Government Secrets

Most readers might not remember Daniel Ellsburg, but for those of us who came of age during the Vietnam War, the maelstrom that formed around him and his actions helped to define that era. Ellsburg, of course, is famous because he leaked a number of internal government documents called the Pentagon Papers in which the writers expressed skepticism about the chances for U.S. success in the Vietnam War. Ellsburg chose to leak to the New York Times and...

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Money-Supply Growth Fell to a 50-Year Low in February. Will the Fed Panic?

Money supply growth fell again in February, falling even further into negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. February'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 contract for the first time since the...

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Virtual Mises University 2023

Join 2023's Virtual Mises University for only $25—or join free for Mises Institute Members (uses your promo code on the back of your Membership card).  For almost thirty years, Mises Institute scholars have presented at Mises University, a world-class, week-long, intensive event in Austrian Economics. Virtual Mises University is the online component of this seminar for students, professionals, business people, and absolutely anyone, anywhere, who...

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It Hurts to Pay for Strained China-USA Relations

Since the Trump administration launched their trade war with China in 2018, “Trump tariffs” have continued to harm not only our international relationships but also the US economy and the pocketbooks of US consumers. Now as global relations with China intensify and we face a national economic downturn, it’s time for the United States to embrace a more cooperative approach to foreign trade and allow free markets to provide a remedy to our economic...

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It’s Not Paranoid to Worry about a Central Bank Digital Currency

In a recent NYT column, economist Paul Krugman mocks Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who warned that a central bank digital currency (CBDC) would give the government too much power over Americans. Specifically, DeSantis argued that the feds could use a CBDC to further implement the “woke” agenda, penalizing Floridians if they bought too much gas or guns. Human Action Podcast: Krugman Says It's Paranoid to Worry About a Fed Digital Currency with...

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Endangering Washington’s Divine Right to Deceive

Do Americans have the right to know if the $100 billion in their tax dollars that the Biden administration is delivering to Ukraine is being wasted? No, according to the U.S. Congress - which recently voted against creating an Inspector General to investigate whether handouts to the most corrupt government in Europe were being stolen. Do Americans have the right to know if their own government blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, the biggest act of...

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No, the Financial Crisis Is Not Over

The collapse of California-based Silicon Valley Bank (and Signature Bank in New York) on March 10, 2023, sent shock waves through the international financial system. It not only made bank stocks and bank bonds fall sharply but also finally brought ailing banking giant Credit Suisse to its knees. The Swiss bank had to be rescued and was bought by UBS on March 19, 2023. In another wave of market fear, Deutsche Bank, another global systemically...

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Things Are Going Down

Mark takes a look at the good news on price inflation and why it is better than reported, but probably short-lived. Other statistics are worsening and, amazingly, even landlords are starting to feel the pain! Be sure to follow Minor Issues at Mises.org/MinorIssues.

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Want to Be a Whistleblower? You Better Support the Current Thing

This week, with camera crews well positioned with the perfect shot to take it all in, federal agents arrested a man for allegedly leaking classified Pentagon documents mostly related to U.S. involvement in the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine. Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira has been accused of leaking sensitive U.S. intelligence documents on to a Discord server. For those who are unaware, Discord is an internet messaging platform...

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Taxes Are the Price We Pay for NOT Living in a Civilized Society

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization. —Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. During tax season, many people try to provide you with practical ways to lower your tax bill and mitigate your exposure to both tax payments and reporting. Instead of repeating such advice, I would rather discuss the role of taxes in society or, in particular, why we...

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The Income Tax: Lessons from the Sixteenth Amendment

The income tax is “undoubtedly the most totalitarian of all taxes.1 —Murray Rothbard At the founding of our country, the framers of our Constitution wisely withheld the right to tax incomes from the federal government. With the recent Revolutionary War in mind, the States were reluctant to cede strong taxing powers to a central state. Given the enormous change in how this country regards the income tax, it is instructive to consider its origins....

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Krugman Says It’s Paranoid to Worry About a Fed Digital Currency

Jonathan Newman joins Bob to dissect Paul Krugman's latest NYT op-ed, in which he derides Ron DeSantis as paranoid for thinking a central bank digital currency (CBDC) could be used to control citizens. Krugman's op-ed in the New York Times: Mises.org/HAP391a Bob breaking down negative interest rates: Mises.org/HAP391b [embedded content]

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Hacking Humanity: Transhumanism

[This piece is an excerpt from The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty.] The notion that the world can be replicated and replaced by a simulated reality says a great deal about the beliefs of those who promote the metaverse [treated in the previous chapter]. The conception is materialist and mechanistic at base, the hallmarks of social engineering. It represents the world as consisting of nothing but manipulable matter, or rather, of digital...

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Equality Requires State Violence

In his excellent new book In Defense of Capitalism (Republic Book Publishers, 2023), the historian and political scientist Rainer Zitelmann asks a vital question about inequality. In asking this question, he makes a move characteristic of his work. Demands to reduce inequality of wealth and income are widespread, and often debates about proposals to do this are centered in political philosophy. Do people have natural rights to their property that...

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The FBI’s New Target: Catholic Churches

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop discuss recent reveals about new lows for the FBI. Ryan discusses new reports about the targeting of traditional Catholic churches and the history of the American Stasi, while Tho highlights new evidence about the role of federal agents in escalating January 6. [embedded content] Recommended Reading "The FBI’s Forgotten Criminal Record" by Jim Bovard:...

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What If the Dollar Falls?

The past few weeks, major countries have been moving away from the US dollar, raising doubts about the dollar’s long-dominant role in the world. Eight weeks ago, it was just pariah nations like Iran or Russia trying to de-dollarize. Now it’s Brazil, France, even Saudi Arabia—the lynchpin of the decades-long “petrodollar” arrangement. If the dollar does lose its position as the global reserve currency, it will be catastrophic for the American...

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Why Do Most Countries Have their Own Currency? Governments Wanted It that Way.

Among the many facts of modern life that are accepted without question by most ordinary people is that it is somehow perfectly natural, expected, and unremarkable that every sovereign state should have its own currency. We see this everywhere in names such as "the U.S. dollar" or "the Chinese yuan" or "the Japanese yen." Indeed, among the 203 sovereign states of the world, there are nearly as many separate national...

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