Mises Wire

Two root causes of homelessness — zoning and minimum-wage laws — are warmly and enthusiastically embraced by both the left and the right and ardently opposed by libertarians.

As the credit expansion turns to bust, many capital goods remain unused, many investment processes cannot be completed, and capital goods produced are used in a manner not originally foreseen. A large portion of society’s scarce resources has been squandered.

Scratching beneath the surface of the debate around countercyclical capital buffers, we find the normal level of duplicity that characterizes most debates about monetary policy.

If local prices are sending the message that everything's perfectly normal, residents may be overly optimistic about the risks they face during natural disasters.

A trip down memory lane will give us a refresher of how gun confiscation has helped consolidate government power.

An increasing reliance on military contractors has allowed US policymakers to keep more wars going while using fewer and fewer US troops in combat.

New York Fed Chief Dudley recently suggested asset bubbles "emerge from the way market participant’s process information and trade" — thus ignoring the role of the central bank.

Racists are often willing to pay higher prices for the psychic profit of living in certain neighborhoods. J. Dallas Bowser was happy to take their money.

In the early years of the United States, legal systems were far more localized and flexible. But elites preferred consistency over flexibility, and the rich could afford the more bureaucratic legal institutions that ordinary people could not. 

Proponents claim that if the government just "cracks down" even harder, the drug problem will be solved. The reality in Mexico and the Philippines shows how wrong this idea is.