Category Archive: 6b) Austrian Economics

School children learn that there are three branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial. In actual practice, however, there are four branches of government. The fourth is what for decades now has been called a "headless fourth branch of government," the administrative state.

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Should employers have the right to discriminate in hiring on the basis of obesity? The Washington State Supreme Court recently ruled that “it is illegal for employers in Washington to refuse to hire qualified potential employees because the employer perceives them to be obese.”

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Marketing guru and fund investor Hunter Hastings joins the Human Action podcast for a look at Economics for Entrepreneurs, a new platform which uses Austrian theory to teach actionable entrepreneurship. Can business acumen be taught, or is it innate? Hunter and Jeff examine consumer sovereignty, value creation, and the theory of the firm, all from a unique Austrian perspective.

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Recent protests in Hong Kong, along with the resulting fall out from international corporations questioned for their relationships with mainland China, has placed a renewed focus on the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party. This has led to several articles identifying ways in which Western countries have learned from the CCP, including Europe's growing embrace of web censorship and growing interest in the social credit system rolled out...

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Libertarians think that taxation is theft. The government takes away part of your income and property by force. Your payments aren’t voluntary. If you think they are, try to withhold payment and see what happens. An influential book by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, The Myth of Ownership, tries to show that this view of taxation is wrong. Many people, they say, foolishly resent taxes.

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US Banks are seeing a larger number of new entrants into the industry. Chime, a mobile-only bank, has opened two million online checking accounts and is adding more customers each month than Wells Fargo or Citibank. Firms from outside traditional consumer banking including Square, Goldman Sachs (Marcus), and Robinhood are entering the industry as well.

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Argentinians are known for for slinging clever insults. Spaniards, for example, love Argentine "puteadas" so much that they created a website called “Curse like an Argentinian.” Now in the world of bad words, one stands out that, when received, mortally wounds the rival in the argument. It's hard to recover after such an attack. Curiously, this insult can be written without violating the rules of decorum.

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