For student members of the Mises Institute:

Please join us on Wednesday, February 11, from 4–5 p.m. central time, for our first “Ask An Austrian Anything.”

National states thrive on political centralization, so supporters of central governments are always looking for new ways to consolidate power over regional and local governments. In the United States, this takes the form of relentless federal efforts to assert control over state policy and to increase the presence of federal agencies in the lives of ordinary people.

There have been two very serious train accidents in Spain in the past few days with a significant loss of life. I do not wish to discuss these specific events at this time as it is a time of mourning. The aim of this article instead is to discuss, from an Austrian economic perspective, the argument that is being presented within the context of these accidents.

Ron Paul has often told the story of visiting Fed Chair Paul Volcker at his office and Volcker would immediately ask what the price of gold was that particular day. Perhaps he was checking on the damage to the dollar that he had done. Volcker had been “the point man at the Treasury Department in 1971 who managed the dollar’s untethering from gold,” wrote Christine Harper.

For two decades, the Mises Institute has produced and published thousands of videos that have brought the insights of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and the tradition they inspired to millions of people all around the world.

Since our beginning in 1982, we’ve hosted seminars and conferences featuring the world’s leading scholars in Austrian economics, libertarian political theory, and revisionist history. But early on, the only way to benefit from these valuable lectures was to be physically present.

Writers of historical fiction do not necessarily depict events that actually happened. Even though their narratives are constructed around events that did happen, they are free to take liberties with the historical facts. They invent parts of the plot, create dialogue from their imaginations, omit historical characters who existed, invent new characters, merge several characters into one, and the like. They do whatever the creators deem necessary to help the plot along, although they often stick reasonably closely to the historical timeline so that the events are broadly recognizable.