William Anderson writes: "I admit to being a regular reader of Krugman's columns, and I suspect that many of my fellow economists on all sides of the ideological divide read him as well, which is one reason the Times has made him a featured star. Of course, being of the Austrian School of Economics, I find very little in Krugman's statements on economics with which I can agree."
With gasoline prices rising to their highest levels in years, and then dipping again after Labor Day, it was inevitable that the politicians would come out of the woodwork and demand yet another costly investigation of the U.S. oil industry. The reason is not scheming industry executives or incompetent managers. Politicians and the bureaucrats they empower, on the other hand, have caused major disruptions to oil supplies. Let us count the ways.
How damaging would another round of protectionism be? With international relations already highly strained—thanks largely, if not wholly, to the unwontedly belligerent approach generally adopted by the current U.S. Administration in its dealings with others—the clear peril here is that a series of escalating trade disputes impairs the ability of flows of goods to discharge the existing financial burdens of debt service and repayment as they come due.
On Labor Day, Americans honor the often incredible contributions of its working men and women.
Airline security had been imperfect, but airlines were capable of improving, and had every incentive to do so. The industry could respond to real threats without creating unnecessary passenger inconvenience. But instead, Congress, with the blessing of the White House, short circuited the market process and created a new bureaucracy.
What's wrong with a futures market in terrorism? It is not a genuine market creation. A growing recognition of the superiority of markets over planning has created an unviable hybrid: the planned market, one created not by property owners but by the state and for the state. Planned markets bear a close enough resemblance to the real thing to fool even astute observers who are otherwise friends of genuine market forces.
When we really study the action axiom, writes Robert Murphy, we see that it summarizes an incredibly complicated, and tremendously important, fact about the world. In order to succeed in the present environment, it is simply indispensable for each of us to attribute intentions and reason to other beings. To put it simply, if you want to get anywhere in life, you have to assume that other humans act.
The ACLU constantly files lawsuits against property owners who attempt to protect their property rights. Many of these lawsuits are supposedly to protect free speech rights. But can there be a right to freedom of speech unless that right is firmly based on property rights?
No one can deny the fact that public law enforcement falls short of being a success. However, many believe that the solution is giving more entitlement to the state to allocate funds for improvements, such as the installation of surveillance cameras. When individuals face tribulations or the status of the economy is in shambles, people see the state as the source of salvation instead of the source of the problem.
There is almost complete unanimity among economists that the most important role of the central bank is to attain price level stability. It is held that price stability promotes economic growth and people's well being by increasing the efficiency of the market mechanism. In fact, Austrians are correct to see that such a policy redistributes resources and generates instability.
