Category Archive: 6b) Austrian Economics

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Prices, Food, Employment: AI and Robotics Are for Regular Folks, Not Just the Elite

2023-05-12

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2023-05-12

While politicians, media mavens, and the academic elite spread fear about artificial intelligence, AI is helping make life better for ordinary consumers. Original Article: "Prices, Food, Employment: AI and Robotics Are for Regular Folks, Not Just the Elite"

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Taxing Capital Leads to Capital Consumption

2023-05-12

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2023-05-12

The Misesian tradition provides essential insights into the nature of capital. From Frédéric Bastiat to Murray N. Rothbard, Austrian capital theory excels. Bastiat illustrated gains from capital by giving us the anecdote of the neighbor who wanted to borrow a timber planer. Rothbard gave us the examples of royalties in the extractive industry to illustrate capital consumption. The list goes on. Often, capital’s exceptional output is because it...

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Price Inflation Growth Slowed Slightly in April. Now Wall Street Will Demand More Easy Money.

2023-05-12

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2023-05-12

The federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released new price inflation data Wednesday, and according to the report, price inflation during April decelerated slightly, coming in at the lowest year-over-year increase in twenty-four months. According to the BLS, Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rose 4.9 percent year over year in April before seasonal adjustment. That’s down from March’s year-over-year increase of 5.0 percent, and...

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Should Local Municipalities Default on Their Debts? Seems Like a Good Idea

2023-05-11

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2023-05-11

While most free market advocates are fixated on the national debt, they also should be looking at municipal debt over which taxpayers have no say. Maybe default is the answer. Original Article: "Should Local Municipalities Default on Their Debts? Seems Like a Good Idea"

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The Money Supply Has Plummeted in the Biggest Drop Since the Great Depression

2023-05-11

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2023-05-11

Money supply growth fell again in March, plummeting further into negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. March'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 repeatedly contract for five months in a row. The...

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Finance Discovers Sting: “How Fragile We Are”

2023-05-11

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2023-05-11

An ongoing debate concerns the plunge in the four-week Treasury note yield in relation to the three-month Treasury yield. At least one tweeter claims it’s all about the coming debt ceiling showdown with the difference in rates (3.145 percent versus 5.070 percent) reflecting the risk of having liquidity tied up within three months as the debt ceiling exercise is run through DC sausage making. On the other side is Eurodollar University’s Jeffrey...

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The Ukraine War Isn’t about Democracy. It’s about States Seeking More Power.

2023-05-11

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2023-05-11

The fight between Russia and NATO is not about "democracy versus authoritarianism." Rather both the US and Russian states are doubling down because they are doing what states do: seeking power. Original Article: "The Ukraine War Isn't about Democracy. It's about States Seeking More Power."

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Progressives Want to Eliminate Wealthy Entrepreneurs but Need the Wealth They Create

2023-05-11

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2023-05-11

Being perceived as anti–working class is a cardinal sin in American politics. Working-class people are seen as the unappreciated engine of American growth. Hillary Clinton discovered this lesson when she was criticized for calling Donald Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables.” But interestingly, expressing contempt for the upper class is quite tolerable. Rich people are frequently ridiculed by comedians and depicted as snobs in popular culture....

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“Bank walk”: The first domino to fall?

2023-05-11

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2023-05-11

In early May, Reuters published a report that truly captured my attention. “European savers are pulling more of their money from banks, looking for a better deal as lenders resist paying up to hold on to deposits some feel they can currently live without,” the article reported. Over in the US, we see a very similar picture. As the FT also recently reported, “big US financial groups Charles Schwab, State Street and M&T suffered almost $60bn in...

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Trump, Dominion, and the Weaponization of Defamation

2023-05-11

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2023-05-11

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop talk about recent court cases involving defamation claims, justifying libertarian skepticism of the entire concept. As Ryan noted in a recent Wire article, the Dominion lawsuit in particular, is a particularly chilling case for free speech, with a taxpayer-funded company effectively silencing public critics. This, along with the recent Trump verdict, are an illustration of the...

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Government Budget Deficits Cannot Stimulate True Economic Growth

2023-05-10

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2023-05-10

A central tenet of Keynesian economics is that governments must run budget deficits to stimulate economic growth. But government spending actually shrinks the economy. Original Article: "Government Budget Deficits Cannot Stimulate True Economic Growth"

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Rothbard’s Button Doesn’t Exist, but It Needs to Be Invented

2023-05-10

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2023-05-10

With totalitarianism accelerating on a global scale and having kicked off in earnest with government attacks on their own populations during the still-running ruse of the covid vaccine, the state as a necessary feature of civilization stands before us shamelessly as a blood-dripping monster. And acting as tyranny’s bulldog is the state’s handmaiden and echo chamber, the legacy media. Are future generations destined to live in an Orwellian...

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NATO’s Great New Idea: “Let’s Start a War with China!”

2023-05-10

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2023-05-10

ATO’s post–Cold War history is that of an organization far past its “sell-by” date. Desperate for a mission after the end of the Warsaw Pact, NATO in the late 1990s decided that it would become the muscle behind the militarization of “human rights” under the Clinton Administration. Gone was the “threat of global communism” which was used to justify NATO’s 40-year run, so NATO re-imagined itself as a band of armed Atlanticist superheroes. Wherever...

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Canada’s Legal Counterfeiting Ring Is a Product of Progressive Democracy

2023-05-10

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2023-05-10

Canada created its central bank during the Great Depression, ostensibly to stabilize the currency and protect the banking system. Today, that system is falling apart, thanks to inflationary central bank policies. Original Article: "Canada’s Legal Counterfeiting Ring Is a Product of Progressive Democracy"

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Is There an Optimum Growth Rate of Money?

2023-05-10

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2023-05-10

It is widely held that a growing economy requires a growing money stock because economic growth increases demand for money. Many economists also believe that failing to accommodate the increase in the demand for money leads to a decline in consumer prices. This could destabilize the economy and produce an economic recession or even a depression. Some economists who follow Milton Friedman—also known as monetarists—want the central bank to target the...

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Are Libertarians Abandoning Free Trade?

2023-05-09

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2023-05-09

A bedrock of Austrian economics and libertarianism has been free trade. Unfortunately, some people who claim to value liberty no longer value unhampered exchange. Original Article: "Are Libertarians Abandoning Free Trade?"

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Socialism, Minority Groups, and Personal Liberties

2023-05-09

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2023-05-09

Socialists have managed to acquire the loyalty of a coalition of disparate groups by championing the principle of personal liberty. Especially in the United States, many women, disabled, gay people, transgender people, racial and ethnic minorities, and immigrants are among the proud supporters of the socialist cause, foolishly believing that capitalism or the free market is antithetical to their livelihood or lifestyles. They could not be more...

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The Ruling Classes Are Inflation Deniers and the Ship of Fools Sails On

2023-05-09

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2023-05-09

Even after two years of "transitory" inflation, America's ruling classes insist that prices are falling and that all of this is temporary. We don't believe them. Original Article: "The Ruling Classes Are Inflation Deniers and the Ship of Fools Sails On"

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The New Immigration Bill Is a Trojan Horse for E-Verify and Is a Threat to All Americans

2023-05-09

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2023-05-09

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are set to vote this week on new legislation that would greatly increase the federal government's power over private businesses, workers, and US citizens. Unfortunately, much of the GOP majority is supportive of the legislation—the “Border Security and Enforcement Act of 2023” (HR 2640)—because it is being marketed as a bill "to secure the border."  Much of the bill contains reasonable...

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Comprehensive Reform versus Piecemeal Reform

2023-05-09

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2023-05-09

In the previous two articles in this three-part series on bipartisan comprehensive political reform, we dealt with the excuses for extortion and evasion such claims for reform provide and with the fact that such claims often lead to more comprehensive ignorance being applied to social problems. Now, we turn to the question of comprehensive reform versus piecemeal reform. When it comes to bipartisan comprehensive political reform, beyond its...

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