Mises Daily

Both Phelps and another Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman have introduced more confusion rather than clarity regarding the explanation of the phenomenon of stagflation.

The income tax should be repealed, not replaced. The IRS should be gotten rid of, not renamed. Tax reform should reduce taxes, not be revenue neutral. Government theft of the wealth of its citizens should be abolished, not adjusted. The FairTax should be called the Fraudulent Tax.

In the eyes of the parties who style themselves progressive and leftist the main vice of capitalism is the inequality of incomes and wealth.

We are being conditioned to believe that for every problem, there is a government answer, and nothing lies outside its purview and expertise. Even mild cases of food poisoning merit a nation-wide investigation and crackdown on bad guys, who, we are encouraged to believe, are always in the private sector and never in the public sector.

What these self-styled "anticommunist liberals" are fighting against is not communism as such, but a communist system in which they themselves are not at the helm. What they are aiming at is a socialist, i.e., communist, system in which they themselves or their most intimate friends hold the reins of government.

Once we have a market supplied money, we can finally burn the paper trash that fuels government plunder and causes macroeconomic fluctuations. It will be our elegy to the tyranny of money theft.

It is not surprising that Mises was strongly opposed to the idea that central banks should impose "low" interest rates during a recession in order to keep the economy going.

Evidently, it was only after extensive knowledge was gained while training to be a mortgage loan officer and studying for a real estate sales license that the now former hairdresser realized borrowing 100 per cent of the sales price to buy real estate that generated a $5,000-plus negative cash flow each month created "a potential for serious financial hardship, such as foreclosure or personal bankruptcy if they could not make their mortgage payments."

The law should focus on violations of person and property, not scientific oddities like blood content.

We libertarians ought to convince everyone else of why it would be better to live in a society without a federal government.