Savings are the foundation for a productive and advanced economy. Unfortunately, governments insist on policies that make it harder for ordinary people to save. This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Millian Quinteros. Original Article: “ The Saving Problem in America: Alternatives and Reforms
On this week’s episode, Mark summarizes the many problems with EVs, and focuses on two consequences funded by taxpayer subsidy. Large, overpriced, long range vehicles have been subsidized at the expense of more efficient technological applications. These EVs are significantly heavier compared to their fossil fuel counterparts (which have engines
Al Gore may be dull-witted, and his speech slow and stiff. But despite this pathetic demeanor, Gore is a formidable defender of government. His program to “reinvent” government was a brilliant maneuver to hide a massive increase in government size and power in a guise of phony cuts in government employees and improved government efficiency. Gore
You don’t have to be a member of the Christian Coalition to oppose the adoption of a state lottery. In fact, I believe in the unrestricted right to gamble. Despite this, I oppose the adoption of a state lottery. After an in-depth study of all the evidence on the lottery, I cannot find one positive thing to say about the lottery. The state lottery
A crucial part of a national political campaign involves enlisting economists to endorse the candidates’ plan. Every four years, statements are circulated by the campaigns and economists are urged to sign up. Mises Institute adjunct scholar Mark Thornton, though certainly not a supporter of Gore, would not, as a matter of principle, sign the Bush
The government tells you that your taxes are being cut. What you may not have heard is that you may soon be drafted into an entirely separate tax system that receives very little public attention outside publications for tax accountants. The name of the second tier of tax is the AMT, the alternative minimum tax. If you work too hard, are too
Economists of an Austrian bent just can’t take off their analytical spectacles, even when undertaking simple life activities like driving from here to there. Fortunately, this unusual way of looking at events and institutions yields fascinating results, as with a recent commute that nicely illustrated the universal truth that governments cause
Austerity: When It Works and When It Doesn’t by Alberto Alesina, Carlo Favero, and Francesco Giavazzi Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019, xvi + 245 pp. Mark Thornton (mthornton@mises.org) is Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute and Book Review Editor at the QJAE. Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 22, no. 1 (Spring 2019), for full
The Free Market 14, no. 11 (November 1996) Republicans seemed sincere when they argued against a minimum-wage increase. In their rhetoric they were right: it increases unemployment, especially among the poor, by making work illegal. Even the head of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers denounced the minimum wage—when he was a private
Volume 12, Number 1 (1996) Prohibition, I venture to say, was the last thing in the world the American people expected to have come upon them. “It can never happen” might be our national slogan. Let us wake up, and face conditions as they are.” Like the Prohibition generation of the 1920s, Americans today seem unaware of their long history of
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.