[The Road to Freedom and the Demise of Nation States. By Peter B. Bos. Free Trade Press, 2015. Xxv + 620 pages.]
This remarkable book reflects the author’s enthusiasm for liberty and his vast intellectual curiosity. I propose to discuss only a few of the book’s central insights, but only reading the book will adequately convey Peter Bos’s intellectual range.
When governments subsidize goods and services — or provide them directly through government-owned institutions — the effect is to lower the price to consumers, thus increasing demand.
Put another way: if the price of, say, a college education is near-zero to the consumer, then consumers are likely to demand a college education in much higher numbers than if the price were higher.
Congratulations to Mises Senior Fellow Peter G. Klein for being recognized by Baylor University as an Outstanding Professor for 2017-2018. In particular, Dr. Klein was credited for his scholarship as the W. W. Caruth Chair and Professor of Entrepreneurship, and Senior Research Fellow with the Baugh Center for Entrepreneurship & Free Enterprise.
His works the past year includes:
Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities came to mind this morning as I drove to work listening to the unemployment report on the radio. The report indicates that the official unemployment rate dropped to the lowest level in almost 50 years. Reporters have been quick to move from this “good news” to the fact that President Trump “leaked” the information via Twitter an hour before the report was released in violation of federal rules.
Donald Trump renewed his attacks on trade this week, announcing new tariffs with China and extending his steel and aluminum tariffs to previously exempted Europe. Since this is Trump, it’s certainly possible that this is another example of “maximum pressure” designed to get some sort of concession. Should this represent a genuine long-term embrace of protectionist trade policy though, American consumers will pay the price.
The economics of John Maynard Keynes as taught to university sophomores for the last several decades is now nearly defunct in theory but not in practice. Keynes’s 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, portrayed the market as fundamentally unstable and touted government as the stabilizer. The stability that allegedly lay beyond the market’s reach was to be supplied by the federal government’s macroeconomic policymakers—the president (with guidance from his Council of Economic Advisers), the Congress, and the Federal Reserve.
[Newsweek columns from September 3, 10, 17, 24, and October 1, 1951, and reprinted in Business Tides: The Newsweek Era of Henry Hazlitt.]
“As the owner, I’m looking at it big picture and long term.” Those are the words of Eric Mason, owner of a Chick-fil-A in Sacramento, CA.
Mason was talking about his employees and sales. He believes successful restaurants are an effect of happy, well-paid workers. That’s why he’s offering his employees wage increases that would boost their pay from $12-13/hr. to $17-18/hr.
