Mises Daily

Many people were outwitted by Madoff. Many more people are today being outwitted by the government and its central bank. And it will all end in disgrace and disaster, only on a far, far grander scale.

We should be worried about building Battlestar Galactica.

"As long as our central government has the ability to dole out these favors, there will be special interests lining up to receive them."

Tragically, it is in the nature of government, when its failures are exposed, to claim that if only it had more power it could have performed its duties in the manner it had promised.

You'll find that even stronger than his belief in free markets was Mises's faith in the power of reason.

Central bankers and public regulators have been particularly reluctant to acknowledge any direct responsibility for the recent subprime meltdown and crisis in worldwide financial markets. The crisis has to the contrary been rather generally interpreted as evidence of a need for more intervention, both by public regulators and central bankers. Nevertheless the role and responsibility of central bankers and regulators with respect to the recent turmoil need to be reassessed.

Hamilton is the founder of the American system, but it definitely isn’t capitalism. It is a system of federal supremacy, national banking, government debt, and cronyism.

But still more disastrous than the impoverishment the boom produces are its moral ravages. It makes people despondent and dispirited.

Bob Higgs' 1997 article "Regime Uncertainty," now appears in slightly revised form as the first chapter of his 2006 book Depression, War, and Cold War.

"The management is deeply embedded in the regulatory structure of the state, working to effectively turn the American car industry into a public-private partnership of the sort Mussolini would have applauded."