The apartment investment industry—like many other asset classes—recently experienced a massive bubble. Peaking in the period from 2020 to mid-2022, this particular bubble was driven by multiple factors.

Decades of rapid loss of their currency’s purchasing power (against the dollar) and other turmoil, such as hyperinflation and political crises, have long made Argentinians prefer the dollar to save and calculate.

The main issue with the federal government’s attempts to regulate the environment is that—as with all things in which the federal government—there is a large degree of corruption, inefficiency, and overall impracticality inherent to their approaches. Take, as two examples, the current administration’s plan to make half of all vehicles on the road electric by 2030 and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) hatred of nuclear power plants.

One of the first major actions President Donald Trump’s team took as he began his second term was to freeze government spending on various domestic “assistance” programs as well as on foreign aid administered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

[Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the May/June 1955 issue of Faith and Freedom under Rothbard’s pseudonym, Aubrey Herbert. Rothbard is responding to an article by the Buckleyite conservative Willi Schlamm who advocates for military intervention against China. The Schlamm article is printed in full at the bottom of this page.

Our new president’s policies for the Middle East, are, I’m sorry to say, a disaster for those of us who support a non-interventionist foreign policy. A war between Israel and Hamas has been going on for over a year. A fragile truce is in place as I write, but who knows how long it will last? Gaza is now a desolated area, because in its ruthless campaign to destroy Hamas, Israel has killed many civilians, destroyed their homes, and reduced others to starvation. Disease is rampant, but hospitals have been bombed, impeding a medical response to the outbreak of disease.

For better or worse, Elon Musk has taken a liking to old Milton Friedman videos. On the good side, Musk has embraced Friedman’s distrust of government and money printing. Friedman, however, was no Rothbard regarding the consistent application of ethical and economic principles to the actions of the state. Despite Friedman’s compromises and error-ridden macroeconomic theorizing, there’s no denying that he was a great popularizer and eloquent defender of laissez-faire.