Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.
Thomas Jefferson has valuable things to say about two key criticisms of the free market. I learned about these from reading C. Bradley Thompson’s America’s Revolutionary Mind (Encounter Books, 2019) Thompson has done an immense amount on research on the thought of the leading figures of the American Revolution, and I urge everyone to read this excellent book.
Listen to the Radio Rothbard version of this article.
It is now well known that the City of Chicago and Illinois overall have adopted stringent gun control laws over the years. Thus, the pro–gun control Giffords Center gives the state of Illinois a lofty “A-” on its “annual gun scorecard.”
Max Eastman during the time from the Bolshevik Revolution through the early 1950s was one of the most famous political writers in America, known also for such literary works as The Enjoyment of Laughter. He began as a radical and, surprising though it may seem to us today, he first looked upon Lenin with favor. How was this possible? He was, and remained throughout his life, a devotee of the scientific method, and he saw Lenin as engaged in a great social experiment. After a long struggle, he saw the error of his ways.
Jeff Deist recently argued the case for economics over politics in his talk “Markets vs. Mobs.” I believe markets will prevail, and here’s why.
Judy Shelton, a Trump nominee to the Fed Board of Governors, may not have coined the excellent term “Fed bug,” but she used it to delicious effect in this 2019 Financial Times interview:
“People call me a goldbug, and I think, well, what does that make them? A Fed bug,” she says.
The saying goes: “The grass is always greener on the other side.” But is it really?
US dollar supremacy is something to which we have become accustomed. It’s easy to take for granted that the dollar is still the world’s reserve currency despite relentless efforts made by central bankers and governments to destroy it.
While Congress argues about how many trillions of dollars to create in the new coronavirus bill to pay for things like basic income or a new $1.75 billion FBI building, the Swiss National Bank posted a quarterly profit of $43 billion for the second quarter. As Reuters reports:
Growth in total employment slowed in July, following two months of big gains in employment, during May and June. But it all comes after the US economy shed more than 19 million jobs during March and April.
In July, the US added 591,000 payroll jobs, with total employment rising to 139.1 million. This is a sizable slowing from June, when more than 5 million jobs were added. At its most recent peak in November 2019, more than a 153 million Americans were employed. From November to July, the US is down 14 million jobs, or 6.7 percent of the US’s working age population.
[Published in Chronicles, Nov. 1993, p. 23–25]
