Category Archive: 6b) Austrian Economics

A glance at the introductory sections in the 2024 budget put forth by the Biden administration might invite dangerous bouts of laughter if only the topic were not so serious and our so-called leaders not so delusional. After the “Budget Message of the President,” the fun begins with “Delivering Results for the American People” and “Growing the Economy from the Bottom Up and Middle Out” followed by the impossible-to-say-with-a-straight-face...

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Last Thursday, Bloomberg reported that federal regulators are preparing a proposal to force US banks to utilize the Federal Reserve’s discount window in preparation for future bank crises. The aim, notes Katanga Johnson, is to remove the stigma around tapping into this financial lifeline, part of the continuing fallout from the failures of several significant regional banks last year. This new policy is reminiscent of the Fed’s actions during the...

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It’s now 2024—the Associated Press says so. In case a claim was made that it’s still 2023, the Associated Press wants to assure everyone that that is false. Now, that’s a fact-check. What isn’t a fact-check is most of what is produced by the fact-check industry. PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and each of the in-house media organizations like CNN’s Facts First are merely confirmation machines, apparatus that reinforce the original lie, like putting...

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The situation in the Middle East is growing more and more dangerous for the Americans stationed there. Two Navy SEALs are dead after being lost at sea off the coast of Somalia while searching a boat that was allegedly carrying weapons bound for Yemen. And many US troops have suffered concussions and other brain injuries in rocket attacks in Iraq and Syria. President Joe Biden and his advisors are reportedly convinced that it is only a matter of...

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[This speech was delivered at the Mises Institute on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Human Action in 1999.  This year, May 16-18, join Dr. Joseph T. Salerno, Dr. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Dr. Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Dr. Mark Thornton, and more for a conference in honor of the 75th anniversary of Human Action at our campus in Auburn. Space is limited. Register here.] In a 1949 memo circulated within Yale University Press, the publicity department...

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Last month, Democratic Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed a bill that would allow the incorporation of financial institutions controlled by states and municipalities. These banks would be not-for-profit, tightly regulated, and given special government subsidies. The Congresswomen claim that public banks are necessary because the private sector has been “rigged” against “those grappling with the costs of simply trying...

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In the realm of macroeconomics, a legion of PhD economists in central banks passionately contends that interest rates are a pivotal policy tool for managing the economy. Simultaneously, these economists firmly uphold that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is an accurate gauge for measuring inflation—a widespread acceptance of this CPI as a valuable metric. The current theoretical state of macroeconomics should be classified as negative knowledge, akin...

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On January 1, 2024, the famous Steamboat Willie entered the public domain. The intellectual property that is the original Mickey Mouse design has been controlled by the Walt Disney Company since 1928. The internet blew up in excitement as a result. Within minutes of the world waking up to the news, horror games were announced based on the design of the famous mouse. The editors of Wikipedia were practically Olympic racers, waiting for the moment it...

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So-called social media is frequently maligned for the nastiness it brings, with focus often set on the personal attacks and trolling that tend to haunt potentially reasonable discussions. X (formerly Twitter) is supposedly the worst, on which people engage in endless mudslinging and bullying. However, the other platforms are not better. The common explanation for the degenerative nature of social media discourse is that the platforms are developed...

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