Mises Daily

With his lack of principles and scruples, Churchill was involved in one way or another in nearly every disaster that befell the 20th century, writes Adam Young. He helped destroy laissez-faire liberalism, he played a role in the Crash of 1929, he helped start WWI, and by bringing in America to help, prolonged the war and created the conditions for the rise of Nazism, prolonged WWII, laid the groundwork for Soviet domination, helped involve America in a cold war with Russia, and pioneered in the development of total war and undermining western civilized standards.

An extraordinary and wide ranging interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe: "The apologists of the central state claim that a proliferation of independent political units would lead to economic disintegration and impoverishment. Today, however, manny small countries are all wealthier than their surroundings. Moreover, theoretical reflection also shows that this claim is just another statist myth."

Our public institutions routinely celebrate politicians as heroes and parade them before school children as examples of great community leaders. Tibor Machan doubts the underlying assumption. Members of a city council, especially in major cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, are as a rule undeserving of special respect. They do not hold honorable professions.

Not even Krugman advocates an economic system akin to what we see in North Korea of the former Soviet Union. Yet, as William Anderson points out, we are now left with a perplexing question: If socialism does not deliver the goods like bread and automobiles in large numbers and in high quality, why does anyone believe that the practice of medicine is an exception?

The latest developments are part of a long list of transgressions perpetrated by the government in its zeal to ruin Martha Stewart. The reason why ImClone shares were set to fall in the first place was due to an incompetent Food and Drug Association's decision to reject the firm's request to market a highly anticipated cancer drug—a decision it would hypocritically reverse.

You may have had a sense lately that something is just not right in your domestic life, not calamitously bad but just bad enough to be annoying on a daily basis and in seemingly unpredictable ways. You are not alone. In fact, a huge variety of personal and social problems trace to a single source.

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.

In a recent testimony, Greenspan argued that we must be grateful to the Fed for its loose interest rate policy since January 2001. Without this policy, he suggested, we would probably be suffering a terrible economic slump by now. Shostak's analysis, however, shows that instead of strengthening in financial conditions, the Fed's policy produce the exact opposite. The data show an unsustainable recovery and deteriorating underlying conditions.

The negative stereotype of businessmen is as false as Marxist theory itself. While millions have, and continue to, suffer under Marxist or socialist economic regimes, entrepreneurs at work in the capitalist world invest capital, organize resources, develop new products, create jobs and make the world a better place for the millions that are affected by their energy and vision.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday and the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday. As usual, Wall Street and financial journalists were all in a tizzy. The Dow reached highs not seen since 2001, and the S&P 500 reached recovery highs. Bonds and the dollar scurried off in opposite directions.