The fact that supply and demand curves can give us a rough picture of market behavior is an effect of human action, writes Gene Callahan, and certainly not the cause of it. No one acts with the goal of bringing supply and demand into balance. The model-builders are likely to forget this.
In the midst of a recession, and with the credibility of central banking itself being called into question, what is a central banker to do? Why, blame executive pay, of course, and impugn the morality of anyone who might believe that Fed governors are a greater threat to economic stability than shareholders that make wage decisions.
In Zimbabwe, reparations are a transparent cover for one of the most monstrous governmental crimes of the last 10 years. Prime Minister Robert Mugabe's land reforms have amounted to nothing more than a power grab by his government, which is starving a country that once was one of Africa's shining stars.
The Socialist Calculation Debate did not end with the fall of the communist systems of the former U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, writes William Anderson. Socialism is alive and well today, and is still wreaking havoc wherever it is implemented. But there is an intellectual antidote to socialism: Austrian economics.
The Soviet system was a chaotic one that was destined not only to enslave and impoverish its people but also to degenerate and finally disintegrate. The Russian people have long experience in suffering poverty and hardship. Full of hope, they may yet find their way to comfort and ease--the way of freedom.
Nearly a lifetime ago, John Maynard Keynes launched his economic revolution, largely on the basis of his belief that interest rates do not do their job and that the market economy is inherently flawed by this shirking.
The alarm raised by mainstream economists that corporate cost cutting will undermine the real foundation of the economy is based on a flawed view of the essence of savings. On the contrary, writes Frank Shostak, cost cutting is an important means in correcting previous erroneous decisions so that real wealth can be generated again.
The current debate over Greenspan’s policy failures misses the crucial question, writes Robert Blumen: Could anyone, no matter how capable and well-informed, successfully perform the job that he is supposed to do? Were his errors sins of incompetence? Could a better man than Greenspan have done a better job?
Why do people walk up stairs but often stand still on escalators? Steven Landsburg and his mainstream colleagues were tripped up by calculating marginal benefits in terms of distance, and then erroneously thought the solution was to calculate it in terms of time. But there is nothing intrinsically valuable about height or time (or depth) as such. Robert Murphy explains.
A government that can jail the rich and well-known at will and confiscate all of their assets is a government that can do the same thing to "ordinary" people--and at a lower cost to government officials, warns William Anderson. If people really want a prosecutorial state with no limitations, they will have their wish granted--and lose whatever precious freedoms they may still have.
