Mises Wire

Robert Reich is an economic fallacy machine, and he has begun a ten-week series in which he claims to debunk economic myths. Of course, to do so, he has to create economic myths and present them as factual.

Asset forfeiture is another term for state-sponsored theft. Reform of this pernicious policy is almost impossible because of the incentives set up by governments at all levels.

What makes a libertarian society libertarian? Certainly, one must begin—as did Murray Rothbard—not only with the nonaggression principle, but also with the unequivocal protection of private property rights.

Even the CBO’s wildly optimistic budget estimates predict deficits and interest expenses will soar, even without a recession. That means in the real world, the disastrous debt trend will be far worse than the estimates.

One of the problems in presenting economic concepts to a public audience is that too many people in the academic world do not comprehend the simple presence of opportunity cost. 

Keynesian economists believe that the key to increasing economic growth is increasing the supply of money in circulation. Money, however, is a means of exchange, not a means of payments. The difference is vital to understanding economics.

Political and academic elites claim that economic freedom is the antithesis of civilization. They claim that functioning civilization can come only from a welfare state, a nonsensical proposition

Across the country, more young people are realizing that learning a trade is a better path than going to college.

The current population dearth in China, Japan, and the West has somewhat cooled the demand by elites that governments "control population." However, past population control efforts by governments already have created serious consequences for the future.

It has become painfully obvious that we will not reverse the current march toward statism by “electing the right people.” Violent revolution is not the answer either. We need to change the Western mindset—before it is too late.