After nine years of outrageous, unwarranted and irrational monetary policy, some people are taking the current monetary regime as normal and natural — the new normal. You can see this on corporate ballot sheets, bank leverage, and the low personal savings rate. However, even the “man on the street” is beginning to believe in this “new normal.”
Economists understand very little about how technological progress occurs. — Alan Greenspan [ This article is adapted from Mark Thornton’s upcoming book on the skyscraper curse . ] Before we leave the topic of the problems and blessings of roundaboutness of production and the structure of production, it will be very useful to see a natural,
The National Institute for Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse recently released a disturbing report on drug overdose deaths. The number of drug overdoses from both legal and illegal drugs increased from approximately 22,000 in 2002 to over 52,000 in 2016, making it a leading cause of accidental death. Even more disturbing is the
Donald Trump campaigned on the economic issues of international trade, immigration, and jobs. He condemned international trade, immigrants, and the economic policies of countries such China and Mexico. As such, he should be made an honorary member of the mid-19th century “Know Nothing” political party. This week he took aim at the trade deficit by
In the fall semester of 1980 I discovered the word libertarian . One of my dorm mates knocked on my door and told me to come see what was on his television. It was a Ed Clark for president advertisement in which Clark said that he was the Libertarian candidate for president and gave a description of what that meant. My friend and I were on the
The Opioid epidemic is spreading across the heartland of America. The number of drug overdose deaths from both prescription (e.g., Oxycontin) and black market (e.g., heroin) opiates exceeded 30,000 in 2015. Initial estimates for 2016 indicate yet another new record of deaths. It is such an enormous problem that I taught a special class on it at
On the same day that Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he would attempt to revamp the war on drugs, it came to my attention that potentially more important events regarding the war on drugs were taking place in Vermont , the “freedom and unity” state. It would seem that the state legislature in Vermont has voted to eliminate the war on
The Bernanke-Yellen bubble is impacting many sectors of the economy. Agriculture land, motor vehicles and auto loans, banking, bonds, contemporary art, corporate stocks, higher education and student loans, mergers and acquisitions, ocean shipping and cruise lines, social media, technology, housing, real estate, and land markets have been
Nobel prize winning economist Robert Shiller recently revisited the Housing Bubble in an article published in the New York Times (“How Tales of ‘Flippers’ Led to a Housing Bubble,” May 18, 2017). He is troubled by the lack of consensus on what caused the bubble-bust that left the world mired in the financial crisis. He states: “We need to
Economists have long played semantic games with business cycles. In particular, they try to downplay the significance of the crisis and to obfuscate its cause. First of all, bubbles and economic crises are initially denied and then usually not named until after they end and particular sectors of the economy are revealed to be what Lionel Robbins
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.