Quarantine Chronicles, No. 2: Praxeology

With many of our readers having more time on their hands while practicing social distancing, the Mises Institute is exploring our online archives and offering topic-specific collections of curated content. This series, we are calling it the “Quarantine Chronicles: A Shelter-at-Home-Series,” will highlight essays, articles, and clips that may not be as widely known, but will provide a deep understanding of important concepts and history.

On the topic of praxeology, we recommend some of the following selections:

The Pandemic Exposed the Frailty of the Financial System

Despite the more optimistic claims of political pundits and Federal Reserve officials (Jerome Powell, specifically), things are far from being under control. Notwithstanding archetypal Austrian objections to “loose” monetary and fiscal policies on the grounds that they create production structures that ultimately deplete the pool of real savings, the operational failures of central banks cross-globally are largely nested in faulty axioms.

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Fábio Santos is a Portuguese Economist and proprietary trader who applies Austrian principles to financial markets an

Free Trade Brings More Foreign Investment into the US. That’s a Good Thing.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

When politicians and pundits tackle international trade matters, discussions inevitably end up focusing on whether Americans get the short end of the stick when they trade with foreigners. The consensus among these folks is that they do. The evidence: Americans buy more goods and services from foreigners than they sell to them.

Italy’s Healthcare Sector Badly Needs Deregulation and More Private Spending

As of the week of April 1, there have been 11,591 fatalities due to COVID-19 reported in Italy. This is as the number of cases in the country has skyrocketed to 101,739. Of those affected, 29,761 have been hospitalized, 3,732 of whom are in an ICU. These numbers are only expected to climb, as experts fear a rapid rise in cases in southern Italy.