About

Meaning of all the icons etc...

mickanomics — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:40:56 GMT

Hi,

maybe I'm being stupid, but I've completely failed to find anywhere on the site which gives an explanation of all the different icons/stars/points etc used on this forum. Can you give me a pointer.

Cheers,

Mick.

What freedoms have been lost in the United States?

Capital Pumper — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:03:32 GMT

So far the only lost freedoms I'm familiar with can be summed up in one ladyattis quote, and police brutality/corruption courtesy or Lew Rockwell Blog.

ladyattis:

"So having to have a national ID, to be frisked while boarding a plane (and soon buses), having the 4th Amendment violated by the 'reformed' FISA and USAPATRIOT acts, being called a criminal if I toke, if I hire a wo/man for sex, walk around nude on my front lawn, sell lemonade without a license, and etc is not a restriction on my freedom of choice?"

Mises Dailies delivered wirelessly to Kindle?

RockyRaccoon — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:05:57 GMT

Hey guys,

I love the Mises Institute.

I also love my Kindle.

Wouldn't it be great to have the Mises Dailies delivered wirelessly to my Kindle so that I can save and highlight my favorite passages on the go?!

Distribution costs must be pretty low, as typical subscriptions cost $0.99-$1.99. Of course, free is best, but I'm willing to pay $1/month for benefit.

Amazon Kindle Blogs - Main Page

Amazon Blog Creation - Account Creation

In the meantime, keep up the fantastic work making Austrian Economics and Liberty available to the masses! Congratulations on your recent success of 10,000 Facebook fans!

-Michael Hall

School

Awe916 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:55:54 GMT

I really want to earn a degree in the Austrian School. Where do I aquire information on this?

how about aligning author and published date in blog comments?

Gernot Hassenpflug — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:00:16 GMT

Dear Mises.org maintainers,

When reading comments in the blogs, the author's name is given at the beginning of the comment, whereas the published date is given at the end. This can make it hard to see when the post was published, especially if it is a long one.

I'd much rather see the published date appear together with the author's name at the top of the post. What do others think? I know it's a small point, but readability is important when trying to assign relevance according to time.

Thanks,
Gernot

Mark a Post as "Best of" Candidate

AJ — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:01:30 GMT

Given all the thought people put into their posts and some of the great debates we've had, it'd be nice if in the "More" drop-down menu there were an option to submit a post (or possibly a whole thread) as a candidate for a sort of "best of the Forums" section. I see two benefits to this:

A growing body of scholarship, FAQs, etc. for people to refer to, learn from, and link to when needed
Additional incentive for people to write good stuff

The community section needs to be "easier" and "more visible"

Uriah — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:51:53 GMT

I used to use AustrianForum.com heaps. It was a great resource as it used well known forum software, was very visible, and easy to find what you wanted.

Unfortunately the mises version doesn't have these attributes.

These forums, wikis and similar, need to be more visible. Although the rest of the site is extremely valuable, the forums especially, provide a significant amount of help when learning these concepts through feedback and participation.

I've found that people I send to this area, feel more intimidated by the interface and even prefer to read through old AustrianForum.com stuff, than post here. I'd be interested to see a comparison between the traffic of the old forums compared to these forums.

I am uncertain of how to do this, short of reverting to the old AustrianForum.com

Perhaps put the link to Forums/Wiki on the main navigation as opposed to nestled under Community.

Then put a section on the main page for good active discussions/etc.

What does everyone think?

Expected Release Date for the Turgot Collection?

revolutionist — Sat, 02 May 2009 23:54:19 GMT

I saw in the Mises store catalog that there should be a Turgot collection coming out this year. Does anyone know the expected release date?

I need admin help

HeroicLife — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:19:39 GMT

If you would like to help manage the community blogs, please contact me. I need volunteers to handle new blog and support requests.

Daily Article Comments

pairunoyd — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:29:33 GMT

I wish Mises would allow comments to be added under the Daily Articles.

Is the new Scholar's Edition of Man, Economy and State abriged?

Jman196 — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:11:13 GMT

I may have posted this in the wrong section, feel free to move to miscellaneous or another suitible area.

I am currently shopping at the Mises store for both Human Action, and Man, Economy and State. I checked on Amazon for the reviews of both works and I found that the first Scholar's Edition of Man, Economy and State has 104 more pages than the new Scholar's Edition. Does anyone know the reason for this?

Also, are the first scholar's editions of these texts of higher quality? I ask this because of the considerably higher price tag each fetch.

On the last page of the first Human Action Scholar's Edition it reads:

"This Scholar's Edition of Human Action is
printed on 50 lb. acid-fiee Finch Fine paper; it is
set using the Yanson typeface; the case cloth is
Rainbow Odyssey, importedfiom the Czech
Republic, a natural-finish, moisture-resistant book
cloth; the endsheets are Rainbow antique
soapstone by Ecological Fibers; the signatures are
Smythsewn; the foil is non-tarnishing gold fiom
Nakai International; and the book was produced at
R.R. Donnelley in Crawfordsuille, Indiana."

That certainly sounds incredible! I'm just curious as to whether or not the new books are of the same standard. Thanks.

just curious

nirgrahamUK — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:29:40 GMT

i'd like to get a better idea of how the forum works, and why etc. so this is just a gentle request.

im interested why/how/who locked the Children NAP thread.

DEAR OVERLORDS: Any chance of putting the free items from the Library on Feedbooks?

vertesi — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 07:38:37 GMT

Feedbooks has become a major central source for free reading materials. It's accessed by Kindle devices, Sony eReaders, and now the iPhone reader Stanza. Is there any way to get some of the free texts - even just the fundamentals like Human Action and maybe Economics for Regular People - on there?

IMHO, the best market to hit in ereaders is the iPhone crowd. Partly because I'm one of them, but also because their reader market share is through the roof. In a month they've gotten more installs than Amazon Kindle's entire anticipated 2008 sales. I mention this because there are other formats supported by Stanza... I believe that you can include your online books in Stanza if they're in epub format. Or Munseys.com might be another option...?

Just trying to get the word out! :)

Oh, and before anyone says it, I know that Stanza desktop will "convert" PDFs and share them with your iphone... but it doesn't preserve linebreaks or formatting! :(

Hire me to transcribe Mises.org audio.

ayrnieu — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:48:37 GMT

I've some prior work here and here. I can be more or less link-happy and audience-descriptive, and I can easily provide transcripts in various formats -- but a condition of Mises.org transcripts is that they be also published at least on my blog for our benefit. I'm very cheap: $15 per mp3 hour. The main competition for my employment right now is 'Wal-mart cart pusher' and 'Fedex package handler', see. So if you've some audio that you'd like to quote at statists, tell me on this site or email me at ayrnieu@gmail.com . Paypal upon satisfaction with the transcripts seems reasonable.

And if this is an inappropriate request for the forums, you can tell me that as well :-(

Suggest an Answer

Steve — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:55:50 GMT

I find it odd that a user can suggest their own post as an answer whenever a question is asked. I find a few users always suggest their posts as the answer almost immediately after posting. I think it would be better if people weren't allow to suggest their own posts, so that way you don't get too many yellow threads. Perhaps I'm alone with this sentiment though.

This Site

duffmann808 — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:52:19 GMT

I am getting frustrated with the way people on these forums are behaving. This site is one I look forward to logging onto everyday, but it has turned into a sort of daycare. I want to be able to have intelligent discussions but there are a few people, who shall remain nameless, who seem to get irritated when you speak of liberty on a sity who self proclaims to be "advancing the scholarship of liberty in the tradition of the Austrian School."

My objective with this post is to ask the parties responsible for both sides of these arguments to stop. Gentlemen (and ladies) lets get back to the topics for which this site is set up to function. Lets talk about Austrian (or other) economics and the views on liberty.

I know for one I have been guilty of anger and jumping to chastise others in the past week or two, which we can or cannot chalk up to my mail period. Therefore, I will be the first to promise my understanding and working with EVERYONE to bring this site back to what we appreciated about it to begin with.

LvMI Forums Lacking Post Quality?

equack — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 05:40:12 GMT

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, or only myself, but it seems there are too many poor posts made on this forum that prevent fruitful discussions. Having read a lot of posts on the Austrian Forums (www.austrianforum.com) helped me gain crucial insight and new ideas. However, I look at posts on these forums and they are either inflammatory (some also beg the question as well), completely ignorant (theres a search feature on mises.org), use extreme hypotheticals going to nowhere, or completely miss the point of this forum (to discuss Austrian economics and libertarianism). Even the arguements between adherants of Austro-libertarianism can't refrain from errors in logic, poor research and citation, bad statistics, and the whole bundle of elementary mistakes in arguementation. It seems the forums should be subdivided into a Newbie/Serious section or something along those lines. If people keep asking questions wheres theres already an answer, its completely useless to have forums in the first place. However, asking questions to clarify readings such as someone asking what did Mises mean by "ideal types" or something along those lines seem completely rational and acceptable.

My only hope is that the senior members of this board realize this and try to bring these forums in a new direction.

Sincerely,

Eric Q.

Dear Austrian Overlords (a request for the Mises Store),

Jackson — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:51:42 GMT

Let me run an idea by you: the von Mises coat of arms + cuff links.

Thank you for your time,

Jackson

How do I put this as a Mises article?

eliotn — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:10:55 GMT

Separation of Poor and State

Images Courtesy of Wikipedia

By Eliot Glairon

It is commonly believed that government can eradicate the problem of poverty. Far from solving the problem, government compounds the problem. The best solution to this problem is to separate government from the poor they are trying to help.

How much do social programs help the poor? If they help the poor more than they hurt them, then these programs could be good. At first glance, some programs seem to provide a net benefit. Public education seems good, because it will teach future children the skills they need to succeed. Using government funds for charity seems good, because it will help the needy. Minimum wage seems good, because workers who get lower wages gain a bigger paycheck. Unfortunately, these programs create other problems for the poor, and are not worth the cost.

First of all, the public education system is a bad idea. It provides poor quality education, as the school system is mostly designed to cater to the dumbest kids. Instead of giving poor kids equal opportunity to rich kids, the public school system gives them a handicap. The rich kids can simply go to the best schools and get the best education, while the poor are simply stuck with a bad quality school.

Another bad policy is the minimum wage. While it ensures that some workers have a higher, "locked-in" wage, employers simply respond by firing workers. While it increases the wage of some workers, the price floor causes some to be unemployed. This is bad, because these workers are a resource that could fulfill more wants, but are untapped.

Because of unemployment, the government does "public works" projects in order to provide jobs for people. However, the government cannot "provide jobs" for free. As a person gains a job from the state, another is lost, as the Government diverts capital to provide this job.

Fearing that the old would be poor, the State tried Social Security. Unfortunately, this caused some people to live poorly in retirement, because people didn't get much from Social Security. Also, an aging population in America puts an additional strain on Social Security.

In order to pay for things, the State needs to tax people, inflate the currency, or borrow money to do this later. This is a "zero-sum" game, where the Government benefits, but the people taxed do not. Unfortunately, this has grave consequences. When taxation, or inflation of the currency, hits the economy, people take fewer risks with their wealth, as they have less. Also, taxation has additional costs needed to make sure people are being taxed the right amount and the costs to catch tax evaders. Inflation also has costs, as it takes resources to print more money. Also, the creation of more money from thin air can lead to a boom and bust cycle.

An additional problem is the inability to calculate where best to use the resources. Without the profit incentive (Government just takes what it wants), Government cannot figure out how to allocate its resources in the most efficient way. In addition, there is no incentive for efficiency. Yet, there is often an incentive for inefficiency, as it can lead government to fund the program more. For example, if the public schools show that they are failing, it will cause an increase in funding through programs like the No Child Left Behind Act.

As a result of this, the whole economy is hurt. People have lower standards of living. Production, investment, consumption, and technological development are stunted, as people bear the costs of Government's money-making scheme.

Instead of this, it is better for there to be a strict separation of poor and State. Instead of State intervention, the best solution is a free market economy. In this ideal, Government's role is limited to protect people and their property, from crimes like murder and theft.

A free market system has effective solutions to help the poor. First, businesses are driven by the "invisible hand" of mutual exchange to help the poor. In the free market, poor people can easily gain jobs, and obtain the goods and services that are low cost, but really wanted. Also, people with good intentions will donate more to help these poor people. For these reasons, a policy of separation of poor and state is the best way to help the poor.

Changing profile pics?

wombatron — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 07:08:07 GMT

I've been having trouble updating my profile picture. I browse for the picture, select it, and press update, and its the same picture as before. I've tried changing the format from PNG to JPEG, tried turning off and on the radio button for avatars, and tried clearing the avater URL box before updating. ???

Mises trading cards

Attackdonkey — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:29:16 GMT

I Think it would make money, and I might do it my self if I had the resources or capital to try. but heres the idea, the institute could make baseball styled trading cards featuring authors, books, and events put on by the mises institute. This would not only sell on its own, but would be a neat way of letting people know about books and authors and events.

Chat suggestion

Libertas est Veritas — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 09:44:39 GMT

Another suggestion: put the chat on an irc server. Web based chats are quite cumbersome to use for long periods and I suspect that as it is now, it will never reach enough users to become useful.