Mises Daily

Respecting rights is not only moral, but also productive. There is no tradeoff between principles and pragmatism.

Although Liberal Fascism contains much important information, its many mistakes require that it be used with extreme caution.

When used with discretion, debt can be a good thing. But many of us individually, and we as a society, can have too much of a good thing.

Let us say that the present aggressive interest rate stance by the Fed fails to prevent the economy from falling into a recession; what kind of action is Bernanke then going to undertake? In some of his writings, he has suggested that, under such circumstances, the Fed should adopt a very aggressive stance and start pushing money on a massive scale, i.e., helicopter money. Needless to say that if this were to happen, Bernanke would run the risk of badly damaging the foundations of the real economy.

While the supposed purpose of genetic antidiscrimination laws is to "protect genetic privacy," the actual effect is to remove the ability of insurers to provide financial incentives for people to get screened for potentially fatal genetic risk factors. This will only lead to unnecessary deaths from treatable genetic disorders and higher health insurance costs.

Ludwig von Mises explained labor union tactics in his book Socialism: "Strikes, sabotage, violent action and terrorism of every kind are not economic means. They are destructive means, designed to interrupt the movement of economic life. They are weapons of war which must inevitably lead to the destruction of society."

For the present and the foreseeable future, there is probably nothing that will stop the Fed from continuing with its inflation.

Policies that force consumers to spend are also policies that force them not to save…

Large profit as such becomes therefore a symbol of social injury, merely because it is large. … Of all the counter symbols this was the one most damaging to the capitalistic system.

Making consumers and businesses appreciate the real value of assets is the way out. There are no shortcuts, only placebos.