Mises Daily

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s masterpiece celebrating capitalism and the individual, is a rare accomplishment. It still holds up, more than ever.

John Wanamaker was the Gilded Age genius who pioneered the department store, the posted single price for goods, the money-back guarantee, and the practice of giving away free products as a way to promote a business. He believed that commerce would save the world.

You think we have no central plan? Think again.

At best, the G7 currency intervention will postpone the inevitable adjustment of world currencies to a change in demand for yen. At worst, the Bank of Japan can enforce a permanent depreciation through money creation, which will redistribute wealth.

Humans are always looking for patterns as a matter of survival, and when the picture isn't complete our brains fill in the blanks.

Like many economic events, the key lies not in what is immediately apparent — explosively large banks — but in those causes and conditions that are veiled. Politicians, pundits, and the population of the Icelandic nation have had a difficult time explaining how such a large financial sector could develop in the first place.

You will not affect the election, but you might die in a car crash trying.

Before the civil war, there were some grounds for saying that, at least in theory, our government was a free one — that it rested on consent.

Obey or die. Isn't this the philosophy of all government in all times and all places?

What makes the current economy so awful is not that there is unemployment, or that there are unsold houses. Rather, things are bleak because it is so unusually difficult for workers to find buyers of their labor services, and for home owners to find buyers of their houses.