Mises Wire

Whether we're talking about the Trump years or not, the idea that the United States embraces unconditional free trade at all costs—while being victimized by foreign protectionists—is based on fantasy.

Trump clearly views trade in a zero-sum, mercantilist manner, with the country possessing a deficit “losing” and “down.” But continuing the trade war only makes recession more likely for both sides. Luckily China is stalling on committing to a trade agreement.

Central banks are driving asset price inflation in stocks and real estate. That means people holding those assets get richer. But everyone else just gets higher prices.

Most "free trade" agreements are really just ways to expand the regulatory state and rob the consumers of the benefits they might have gotten from actual free trade.

Markets are not the enemy of equality. Regulated markets are. The income inequality that naturally occurs in the free market as a result of human uniqueness is needlessly amplified by restrictive government policies to the detriment of all.

Henry Hazlitt cohosted the CBS series Longines Chronoscope from June 16, 1952. The series ran from 1951–55 and featured notable people of the time.

Everything you learned from family dinner conversations and your culture served to build your human capital. Across the globe, the people of various regions cultivate certain skills that enable individuals to consider entrepreneurship as a viable choice of work.

Michael Milken was a threat to the complacent Wall Street cartels established by the New Deal. So ambitious prosecutors like Rudy Giuliani saw an opportunity to get in good with Wall Street by taking him down.

Buttigieg's plan to repopulate depressed rural areas with immigrants reminds one of old Soviet schemes to ship people to Siberia to stimulate the economy there.

It is ironic that a president who has been the victim of so much deep state meddling has done the deep state’s bidding when it comes to Assange and Wikileaks. The deep state that Trump is serving by persecuting Assange is the same deep state that continues to plot his own ouster.