The relationship between ends and means has long been debated. For instance, the legacy of “the end justifies the means” traces back to Sophocles’s Electra four centuries before Christ, Ovid’s Heroides, and Machiavelli’s The Prince. And more recently, Leonard Read pointed out that if the ends are just hopes that will not, in fact, be achieved, they cannot justify means that infringe on others’ rights.
If you are hungry for a productive diversion amidst the destructive government lockdown decrees and social distancing mandates, I highly recommend listening to this audio recording of Murray Rothbard’s talk “On Milton Friedman.” Recorded in 1970, it features Rothbard at the top of his game, delivering a comprehensive and penetrating critique of Friedman’s signature economic policy positions as well as their underlying theoretical rationale.
Futures oil contract trading is generally done by two different groups, speculators and commercial hedgers.
Speculators are essentially taking a position on where oil will be at a future time. If they think it will go higher, they will buy an oil contract to profit from what they expect, a higher price. If they believe that oil will be lower, they will sell (short) oil contracts to profit from the decline they expect.
The eurozone is a gigantic machine of monetary redistribution. Several independent governments can finance their expenditures through deficits that are monetized directly or indirectly by one printing press.
In economic terms, war and pandemic are the same without even evoking imagery of the virus as an invisible enemy or of a long struggle interspersed with brief truces. Both disasters emit massive supply shocks which hit the engines of prosperity.
With its $700 billion bond-buying expansion in response to the COVID crisis, the Federal Reserve has thrust itself into the limelight. Like a sixteen-year-old with a credit card, the Fed is salivating over what money-printing powers it shall seize next. How is the prudent investor to respond?
Listen to the Audio Mises Daily version of this article.
