Interventionism

Dr. Block and Dr. Jared Bernstein (Economic Policy Institute) debate the minimum wage on 8 March 2008.

...in Massachusetts during 1630-50.

In sum, the real cause of continually rising food prices is the printing of money by world governments. And the real cause of actual food shortages is the prevention of profitable global trade in food by the ill-advised policies of the governments of the very people who are starving.

The real solution for health care insurance is therefore better education, both in terms of the history of governmental intervention in health care markets, and the theoretical concepts of Austrian economics that are indispensable to our understanding of historical facts.

Brian Wesbury, chief economist at First Trust Advisors, offers in th

Gordon is incensed that a few "analysts," including myself and Professor Stan Liebowitz of the University of Dallas, have argued that the bursting of the housing bubble has caused the chickens to come home to roost, so to speak, after thirty years of government policy pressuring banks to make tens of billions of dollars in bad loans to people with low (or nonexistent) credit ratings.

What Rothbard was describing, as have other Austrian-school economists, was the business cycle — when "businessmen are misled by bank credit inflation to invest too much in higher-order capital goods," like land, plant and equipment.

Let us not be swayed by politicians out for power or by reporters out to create news where none exists. Facts and economic logic should prevail rather than rhetoric.

Make fuel from corn, by all means, if the free market signals that this the most pressing need and, hence, the most lucrative use for the crop.

Instead of decrying the penny, economists should recognize its potential to combat government inflation and advocate a return to an even harder currency. Coins may be expensive for the government to make, but this ensures that our money retains some value, regardless of what the government does. Do we really want free money?