Interventionism

Recorded at Mises University 2003.

Recorded at Mises University 2003.

Recorded at the Mises Institute, May 1994.

Gregory Bresiger explains all you need to know about the SEC's proposal to ban "soft dollars" in mutual fund management. Once again, the regulators and reformers are about to make the wrong decision, which means another generation of social engineers will have to come up with more reforms to correct the errors of the previous generation of reformers and busybodies.

England's undergraduate institutions are rife with outdated and understaffed facilities, crumbling infrastructure, and poorly compensated instructors, all consequences of deferred investment prompted by the need to meet the current expenses of accommodating the influx of new degree-takers. Grant Nülle says that this the fate of all socialist institutions. Blair's proposed reform fall far short of what is necessary.

You have surely played the Parker Brother's board game Monopoly. It has been published in 26 languages and in 80 countries around the world. 

The Eagle Is Grounded - While America works to protect intellectual property

Beware of trade restrictions, writes N. Joseph Potts; they are often followed by war. Iraq is only one case. The United States embargoed sales of scrap iron to Japan before the war with that country began in 1941, and probably worse, secretly colluded with Britain, China, and the Netherlands (which at the time controlled oilfields in Indonesia) to deny petroleum resources to Japan, a step still cited today in Japanese accounts of the causes of its war with the United States.

New Jersey has the dubious distinction of having the worst automobile insurance system in America. It is literally the most expensive, and provides poor service to its customers. Despite these high premiums, many automobile insurance companies have exited this market. In the past ten years, twenty insurers have left New Jersey. D.W. MacKenzie predicts reform won't help either. 

Economists talked blithely of privatizing Iraqi assets, writes Joseph Stromberg, without considering the bureaucratic implications of the method, the motivations of the public authorities, the long and disgraceful history of imposing a pre-set view of what constitutes a free market, and the reality that dividing up assets in a conquered country is probably contrary to international law. There are better ways to bring freedom to the world.