Most states and municipalities that lose business in spite of offering companies tax breaks walk away, but one town is fighting back. (Story in today’s NYT .) Point: In a competitive global environment, ... ...tax breaks can’t trump the adoption of competitive tax and regulation policies relative to those overseas, and as a result, states’ and
The computer glitches that stranded thousands of airline passengers on a busy Christmas weekend resulted when protected workers called in sick at numbers greater than anticipated, but don’t tell that to the New York Times . It is simply another case of market failure, and a reason to pine for the good old days when the Civil Aeronautics Board had
Rising oil prices now cause low long-term interest rates. Some convoluted economic thinking from the New York Times : Yet this time prices are not soaring. Overall consumer prices in July were only 3 percent higher than a year earlier, and prices excluding energy and food rose only 1.8 percent. This has allowed long-term interest rates to decline,
A pithy explanation of Austrian Business Cycle Theory, from Chris Lingle at TechCentralStation: This fractional reserve banking system allows banks to engage in credit creation by issuing notes and bank balances unsupported by any new wealth. Since money substitutes are created out of thin air, the whole process is a risky venture. On its face,
Here is a beatification web site devoted to Karl of Austria, the last Habsburg emperor. Karl was named blessed last Sunday in Rome by Pope John Paul II. See especially, in the photo section, the pictures of Karl’s son Otto as a young boy (and Crown Prince). Otto, who visited the Mises Institute in 1997, was a close friend of Ludwig von Mises. His
This morning’s news brings reports on the bedeviled Frank Quattrone, formerly of Credit Suisse First Boston, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison for obstructing a federal investigation. He did this, argued the feds, by sending out a routine 22-word e-mail that reminded his subordinates to clean up their e-mail files. The New York Times noted
... by BU’s Jeff Miron . “One of the critical questions is whether, or to what degree, prohibition actually reduces the use of a commodity that you’re prohibiting,” Miron says. “The standard assumption behind prohibition is that if you prohibit it, people won’t do it. That’s obviously not quite
In the best article ever to appear in the mainstream press on the truth (well, some of the truth) about the statist scheme called Social Security privatization, Toner and Rosenbaum note: “But behind the sweeping promise are some harsh political realities that could loom large in this fall’s debates and the final clashes of the presidential
...writes Joanna Glasner in Wired . Nonetheless, rather than turn solely to the [9/11] commission’s website to download the [9/11] report, more than 600,000 people have instead paid $10 or so for a printed copy. For the report’s official publisher, W.W. Norton & Co., it’s been an unexpected windfall. “Nobody anticipated it would sell at this
In an effort spearheaded by Sen. John McCain--and based on the shakiest of “market failure” grounds--Congress is contemplating spending $1 billion to force users of analog television to switch to digital (according to Wired News ). It helps that the government stands to gain up to $70 billion from auctioning portions of the TV spectrum to wireless
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.