One day in 1927 Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, stood at the window of his office at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, and looked out over the Ringstrasse (the main grand boulevard that encircles the center of Vienna). He said to his young friend and former student, Fritz Machlup, “Maybe grass will grow there, because our civilization will end.” He also wondered what would become of many of the Austrian School economists in Austria. He suggested to Machlup that, clearly, they would have to immigrate, perhaps, to Argentina, where they might find work in a Buenos Aires nightclub.

[Newsweek column from May 26, 1952, and reprinted in Business Tides: The Newsweek Era of Henry Hazlitt.]

At his press conference on May 8, Mr. Truman, asked whether the chief danger was inflation or deflation, replied that the country had to guard against both: and that was why it was necessary to have control powers — to prevent either one.

Judge Andrew Napolitano and Gerri Willis discuss Trump’s new tariffs and how they will affect everyday Americans.

Not surprisingly, Napolitano takes strong anti-tariff views, and also notes it’s unconstitutional for the President to impose taxes without the explicit approval of Congress. wishing to dodge responsibility, however, the Congress has abandoned its role in taxation. 

In his introductory remarks, last week, Joe Salerno articulated the strategic importance and uniqueness of the Mises Institute’s annual Austrian Economics Research Conference. If you missed the live broadcasts, those videos are available on Mises.org.

International trade hasn’t had a very good time lately.

“Globalism” and “globalization,” are terms that suffer from a lack of any precise definition. The terms are used freely by a wide variety of commentators to mean both good and bad things — many of which are opposites of each other. Sometimes globalism means lowering trade barriers. Other times it means aggressive foreign policy through international organizations like NATO. Other times it means supporting a global bureaucracy like the United Nations.