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This is astonishing, even by 2020 standards.

It’s increasingly clear to even the average American that if riots come to your neighborhood, you’re on your own. The message received is increasingly be this: if your plan is to wait until the police show up to provide “protection,” be prepared to wait a long time. Consequently, as violence appears to surge in America’s cities, millions of Americans have become first-time gun owners.

The Fed Emperor’s New Clothes Show is a continuous comedy without laughter. The latest act, the virtual Jackson Hole conference (August 27), was dreadful.

Although the draconian lockdowns punished the economy, a partial recovery occurred after governments allowed businesses to reopen. However, continued economic growth depends on the outcome of the presidential election. The crisis opened the door for a surge in regulations, subsidies, and other special interest privileges under the guise of promoting the “public health.”

This progressivism—a code word for cronyism—presents a serious threat to America.

The US Federal Reserve has adjusted its official inflation target to be even more flexible and inflationary. The Fed has always been more inflationary than the Bundesbank and its successor, the European Central Bank, at least on paper. The primary objective of the ECB is price stability, following the Bundesbank legacy.

To quote the last paragraph of this 2008 article by Robert Murphy, when asked why Austrian school economics should be studied, the best answer is: “the Austrian theory of capital is the best one you can find if you really want to grasp how the economy actually works—beyond sterile mathematics and static timeless analysis.”

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

Since at least as early as the mid-1990s, the term “militia” has been increasingly used by journalists and scholars on the left in connection with alleged “right-wing extremists.”1