Recently, my wife started a major “some-assembly-required” project at our home. At a stage when the question was becoming whether to finish or take things apart again and return them, the chance to do something she very much wanted to do came up. So she left the rest to me, but apologized that she didn’t mean to dump that extra work on me. That
If your landlord or apartment manager hasn’t gotten around to fixing your garbage disposal for weeks, how carefully do you think about why? If you are like many people, you simply blame your landlord or manager, rather than inquiring further. This is an example of greedy-bastard economics: rather than tracing their understanding of something they
While I have been associated with the Ludwig von Mises Institute for some time, distance and my work schedule have meant that my face-to-face interactions with others who share my appreciation for the Institute’s work have been too infrequent. So it was a great pleasure to be able to attend the Mises Circle event — Economic Downturn: Cause and
Americans are being burdened by a historic expansion in the federal government. It has effectively nationalized much of banking, bailed out financial and car companies and arrogated the power to override bondholders’ rights, fire corporate officers and control executive compensation. Health care “reform,” will impose new taxes, fees, deficits,
In America today, for every problem, a national “solution” is proposed, regardless of how individual or local the issues are. Whether we consider housing, education, energy, transportation, finance, labor markets, the automobile industry or the current attempted takeover of the health care and insurance industries, we are overwhelmed with ever
Socrates argued that the unexamined life was not worth living. So, in a world short on serious reflection, New Year’s resolutions can lead to useful self-examination. But it is important that we think through our resolutions, or we can undermine their purpose. Helpful resolutions must begin with an honest stock-taking. But facing failures,
November 7 marks the 1913 birth of Albert Camus, 1957 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for work that “illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.” Those times were ones where the specter of tyranny loomed large during World War II and its aftermath, until his accidental death in 1960. While best known as an existentialist
During Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, the mantras were hope and change and the imagery was that with him in charge, faith in government would be justified. But what America has mainly seen since his inauguration is fear. The President pushed his bailout plan with apocalyptic language that, without it, the sky would fall. Similarly, his
About the only time the general public focuses on the judiciary is when new Supreme Court justices are chosen. So President Obama’s soon-to-be-announced replacement for Justice David Souter has drawn a great deal of attention. But there has been surprisingly little discussion of our founders’ intent for America and the implications for
As has become the current pattern, the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause keeps providing fodder for the courts. The Supreme Court will hear Salazar v. Buono during its upcoming session, involving whether a cross in an isolated area of Mojave National Preserve, first erected in 1934 as a war memorial, will be held unconstitutional. It is
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.