Category Archive: 6b) Austrian Economics

By popular thinking, whenever the central bank raises the growth rate of the money supply through the buying of financial assets such as Treasuries this pushes the prices of Treasuries higher and their yields lower. This is labeled as the monetary liquidity effect. This effect is inversely correlated with interest rates. Furthermore, an increase in the money supply after a time lag strengthens economic activity and this pushes interest rates...

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Imagine that you are a healthy 30-year-old young man who has a respectable job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I am not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I am healthy, I do not need it. But something terrible happens, suddenly you fall into a coma and need it. Who is going to pay for your coverage? In a society where you accept welfarism and socialism to be the answer, you would expect the government...

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As I wrote in my previous piece on statism and the Israel-Hamas conflict, states are organized crime rackets. Wars between states thus represent warfare between rival gangs. The proper libertarian position with reference to such gang wars is neutrality, or the opposition to all state parties to war. Neutrality includes opposition to interventionism, including opposition to sending arms and aid to other nations. Foreign aid increases the tax...

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Europe currently faces several challenges that potentially harm the quality of life for people in general but especially for young individuals, preventing them from developing their lives autonomously and independently. The housing crisis, reflected in overcrowded accommodation affecting 28 percent of young people aged 15 to 29, is just one example. Freedom of expression in Europe also seems more threatened than ever. Highly controlled content is...

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In 2002, President George W. Bush cited the now famous “axis of evil”—Iraq, Iran, and North Korea—as he tried to get the American people to look beyond those responsible for the 9/11 attacks and greenlight a global military campaign to “rid the world of the evil-doers.” The result was the $8 trillion global war on terror that continues to this day. Now, in the wake of the Hamas attacks in southern Israel one month ago, the same language is being...

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A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II by Murray N. Rothbard Edited with an Introduction by Joseph T. Salerno (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2002; 510 pages) A History of Money and Banking in the United States comprises a collection of essays written by Murray N. Rothbard and compiled and edited by Joseph T. Salerno. It is the most comprehensive and enlightening treatise on the history...

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We're about six weeks into fiscal year 2024, but if this year looks anything like last year, we can assume the federal government will continue to pile up debt at astonishing rates.  According to the September Monthly Treasury report, the US government accumulated an additional 1.7 trillion dollars in debt for the 2023 fiscal year, which ended October 31.  That' up by $319 billion, or 23 percent, from the 2022 fiscal year. As recently as June,...

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It certainly wasn’t the only time calling a perceived ally of DC a democracy became a tradition with India. While India could have been the first non-European “ally” to receive such treatment since the heydays of the Cold War, the immense support India currently enjoys despite a litany of human rights violations will never outclass the kind of prowess Tel Aviv has from the grassroots and political elite in the Beltway. Between the dying enthusiasm...

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