Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

Would Stress Tests Have Prevented the Failure of SVB? Probably Not

“This is all about regulation and the fact that at some point in time there was great advocacy for making sure that the regional banks and the smaller banks didn't have to comply with some of the rules that perhaps would not have allowed them to get into this situation because there would've been stress testing and more oversight and more watching of what was going on.” ~ Rep. Maxine Waters (D), Financial Services Committee, March 15, 2023 As fate...

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Why Fractional Reserve Banking Is behind Bank Failures

Suppose an addict had the ability to magically create, ex nihilo, his own stimulating drug, as fractional reserve banks can do with money and credit. Would you expect moderation? Original Article: "Why Fractional Reserve Banking Is behind Bank Failures" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Climate Activism: The Second Children’s Crusade

The "first" Children's Crusade of 1212 ended in tragedy for those taking part. The "second" crusade is not going to produce any happy endings, either. Original Article: "Climate Activism: The Second Children’s Crusade" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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The Price of Gold

Mark is not fooling around today. He looks back at the history of gold and its price, which some believe is too erratic and too unstable (like Bitcoin) to serve as a basis of a monetary system. Mark shows that it is not gold that destabilizes events in the real world, but rather real world events related to political decision-making that has made the price of gold unstable. The price of gold is a "minor" indicator of what governments are...

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Can Civilization Survive without Sound Money?

As long as states are around, money will never be sound. But first, some clarity. Sound money, per Ludwig von Mises, has two aspects: It serves as a commonly accepted medium of exchange, while also making it difficult for governments to meddle with it. We can see immediately that sound money is nowhere to be found in today’s world. All the current rhetoric about banks and their systemic risks are about money that’s subject to political expediency,...

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

When Rudy Giuliani was pursuing his infamous Wall Street prosecutions in the 1980s, his aides admitted that they were indicting people on “novel legal theories” that had not been used before. A Giuliani lieutenant bragged to a group of law students that prosecutors in his office ...were guilty of criminalizing technical offenses. . .. Many of the prosecution theories we used were novel. Many of the statutes that we charged under . . . hadn’t been...

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De-Dollarization and the Fall of American Hegemony

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop discuss the global moves being made against the US dollar. The regime's decade long weaponization of money and banking has both international rivals and historical allies looking for alternatives. Ryan and Tho discuss what that means for Americans, and what may come next. [embedded content] Recommended Reading "World needs to end risky reliance on U.S. dollar: BoE's...

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Central Banks Are Creating the Return of Mugabenomics

Because his actions were so outrageous, perhaps it is impossible to satirize the former president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, but perhaps I can describe him. As a shout-out to all my neighbors in the Asia Pacific, let us not forget the Sun Tzu tradition to “know the enemy.” For an analysis of the Zimbabwe hyperinflation, see Jayson Coomer and Thomas Gstraunthaler’s article in the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. Below, I draw similarities...

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How Politicians Use Regulations to Deflect Blame

Thanks to their adoring media, politicians create crises and then blame businesses for them. And the political "solutions" are worse than the original problems. Original Article: "How Politicians Use Regulations to Deflect Blame" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Wisdom from a Yenta

Left Is Not Wokeby Susan NeimanPolity Press, 2023; 155 pp. There is much to dislike in this book. Susan Neiman, a former philosophy professor who now heads the “Einstein Discussion Group” in Potsdam, is a socialist who has good things to say about Communist East Germany and parrots every anticapitalist cliché in the book. I have blasted some of her work in earlier reviews. In Left Is Not Woke, though, she makes some good points, and I’m going to...

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With the Feds, It’s the Fox Guarding the Henhouse

Bob is joined by guest Peter St. Onge to discuss how SVB's CEO, as well as Bernie Madoff, had key positions advising the Fed and SEC. Then they discuss how we should think about central banks losing money. How the SEC was Charmed by Madoff: Mises.org/HAP389a Bob's Understanding Money Mechanics: Mises.org/HAP389b [embedded content]

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The Outbreak of World War I: A Libertarian Realist Rebuttal

One excuse that political elites give when they drag nations into war is that the conflict was "inevitable" or "unavoidable." Ralph Raico knew better. Original Article: "The Outbreak of World War I: A Libertarian Realist Rebuttal" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Credit Suisse Collapsed Because of Government Intervention, Not Despite It

Credit Suisse, one of the fifty largest banks in the world, has joined the long list of Western banks over the past two decades that have been rescued from the brink of failure and subsequently acquired by a larger financial institution. After comments from the chairman of the Saudi National Bank triggered the evaporation of almost a third of the megabank’s market capitalization, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced the creation of a new...

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Submission Guidelines for the Mises Wire

The Mises Wire depends on unaffiliated contributors for a significant proportion of its content. We welcome submissions from everyone, regardless of educational achievements and other credentials, so please send us your essays! We’re looking for short articles that approach real-world economic issues from an Austro-libertarian perspective (read: not just theory). We also accept history and sociology pieces that make use of Austrian or libertarian...

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Does Cost Cutting Undermine Economic Growth?

Keynesian economists claim that cutting costs in a business slowdown is counterproductive. As usual, the Keynesians have it backward. Original Article: "Does Cost Cutting Undermine Economic Growth?" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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The Pentagon’s Budget from Hell

On March 13th, the Pentagon rolled out its proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The results were—or at least should have been—stunning, even by the standards of a department that’s used to getting what it wants when it wants it. The new Pentagon budget would come in at $842 billion. That’s the highest level requested since World War II, except for the peak moment of the Afghan and Iraq wars, when the United States had nearly 200,000...

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Elizabeth Warren’s Contradictory Demands for Easy Money and Strict Financial Regulation

As the financial ripples following the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) continue to run through the financial sector, a predictable voice has weighed in on the affair, and, as always, giving bad advice. Elizabeth Warren, never one to skip a chance to publicly gnaw on a financial carcass, writes in the New York Times that the entire problem is lack of government regulation. Of course. The US senator from Massachusetts has spent most of...

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The Last Lie Government Will Ever Tell

Western governments seem to relish a clash with Russia, despite the specter of nuclear war. If so, it will be a conflict built on government lies. Original Article: "The Last Lie Government Will Ever Tell" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Understanding the Difference between Praxeology and Psychology

It has been proposed that praxeology has potential not only as the foundation for growing the Austrian school of economics but other sciences as well. The utility of Austrian economics is immense, and similar achievements in other domains would be welcome. However, it seems like a difficult task, as demonstrated by a recent effort to expand praxeology to psychology. The present article discusses the scope and power of praxeology and the conditions...

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Democracy Created Canada’s Lethal Healthcare System

Canadian politicians tout their healthcare system as morally superior to private medicine. There is nothing moral about relegating thousands of people to death each year for lack of medical care. Original Article: "Democracy Created Canada’s Lethal Healthcare System" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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