Argentina’s election of a left-wing government last month has people speculating about the country’s future. Previously, I wrote about how neither outgoing President Mauricio Macri nor the ticket of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner would do much to solve Argentina’s economic ills.
On the Mises Institute’s Economics For Entrepreneurs podcast, Dr. Per Bylund has stated more than once that entrepreneurs who can develop an understanding of both the laws of economics and the mind of the customer can thereby create a competitive advantage and a successful business.
[Chapter 7 from The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt, edited by Hans F. Sennholz (Irvington-on-Husdon, NY: The Foundation for Economic Education, 1993).]
If capitalism did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it — and its discovery would be rightly regarded as one of the great triumphs of the human mind. But as “capitalism” is merely a name for freedom in the economic sphere, the theme might be stated more broadly: The will to freedom can never be permanently stamped out.
Libertarians think that taxation is theft. The government takes away part of your income and property by force. Your payments aren’t voluntary. If you think they are, try to withhold payment and see what happens.
A seductive (if poorly considered) critique of markets is the notion that they are so wildly unpredictable and inherently unstable that we need government to watch over them and intervene to mitigate their excesses. There is a great irony in this position which I will reveal.
Should employers have the right to discriminate in hiring on the basis of obesity? The Washington State Supreme Court recently ruled that “it is illegal for employers in Washington to refuse to hire qualified potential employees because the employer perceives them to be obese.”
With interest rates in many countries close to zero or even negative, some commentators are of the view that monetary policy of the central banks are likely to become less effective in navigating the economy. In fact it is held that we have most likely reached a situation that the economy is approaching a liquidity trap. But what does this mean?
According to an article in Bloomberg on November 5, 2019, Milton Friedman’s business cycle theory seems to be vindicated.
According to Milton Friedman, strong recoveries are just natural after particularly deep recessions. Like a guitar string, the harder the string is plucked down, the faster it should come back up.
[Editor’s Note: This year, University of Virginia Professor of English Paul Cantor released his third book in a series of books on television and film.
