Today would have been the ninety-second birthday of Burt Blumert, one of the greatest personalities of the modern libertarian movement. Burt was the indispensable man behind the scenes and was a key figure in the Mises Institute, the Center for Libertarian Studies, and LewRockwell.com. He was one of Murray Rothbard’s closest friends; and when you met him, it was easy to see why Murray liked him. He was a genial and kind person and a source of wise counsel to all those fortunate to know him. Burt was the founder of Camino Coins and a principal figure in the hard money community.

I’d like to discuss what is sometimes claimed to be a major problem for theories of rights like that of Murray Rothbard, which start from the principle of self-ownership and incorporate a Lockean principle of initial appropriation of resources. In brief, you own yourself; you “mix your labor” with unowned land or resources, and in this way you acquire the land or resources. The details of what you have to do to acquire the property do not for our purposes matter, and some people prefer to avoid altogether the language of labor mixture.

The Bretton Woods plan for monetary reconstruction did not go as far as Keynes would have liked. He proposed a full-scale world central bank and a single paper currency for all nations, which he wanted to be called the “bancor,” so there could be no escaping inflation. That plan is still awaiting implementation. As it was, the Bretton Woods conferees, under pressure from the United States—which wanted the dollar to be the bancor—took a compromise position.

Update: as of Monday, February 15, 2021, Parler is back online.

A sitting US president is suspended from Twitter, Facebook, and email service provider Campaign Monitor. A pillow entrepreneur not only loses his personal and business Twitter accounts but also ten retail stores for believing that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Bank of America (BOA) gave federal law enforcement authorities records of 211 of its customers who made purchases with a BOA credit or debit card in Washington, DC, around the time of the January 6 capitol riot.

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Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is under fire for neglecting to play the national anthem (i.e., “The Star-Spangled Banner”) at his team’s home games. According to NBC News: 

[Chapter 2 of Rothbard’s newly edited and released Conceived in Liberty, vol. 5, The New Republic: 1784–1791.]