“Patients dying in hospital corridors.” So went the headline which appeared on the BBC’s website last week, detailing the newest outrages which have emerged from Britain’s crisis-beset healthcare system. This most recent revelation came as a result of an open letter sent to the prime minister by 68 senior doctors, offering details of the inhuman conditions which have become common in the National Health Service’s hospitals.
Last Friday, Jeff Deist and I discussed the difficulty of really comparing the current standard of living to those of the past. During the interview, I mentioned Jeffrey Herbener’s discussion with Tom Woods about the CPI, the use of hedonic adjustments, and changes in the standard of living overall. Anyone who enjoyed Friday’s interview may also like Herbener’s detailed discussion of price inflation estimates and related issues.
The Chinese state’s “news” service Xinhua on Sunday mocked the United States for the current federal-government non-shutdown, called a “shutdown.” The Chinese agency claimed the current legislative stalemate — which has hardly “shut down” the federal government — demonstrates “chronic flaws” in the US federal political system.
[Editor’s note: As we face another so-called government shutdown, some may recall that we’ve been down this road before. In this 1996 article, Lew Rockwell explains that government “shutdowns” are neither as unpopular, or as troublesome, as the media and Washington politicians assume.]
Facebook continues to tinker with its News Feed options. It’s unclear if this will affect how often you see Mises Institute articles in your feed, but if you want to make sure we keep coming through, here’s how.
Recent allegations of improper conduct have been made against former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and current Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Both cases, which are unrelated, have raised questions about a conflict-of-interest, which arises when public office holders use their positions for personal gain. These stories about Clinton and Trudeau are nothing more than minor symptoms of a much bigger problem.
The Skyscraper Index shows a correlation between the construction of the world’s tallest buildings and economic busts. It was created by economist Andrew Lawrence in 1999. Mark Thornton of the Mises Institute expanded on Lawrence’s work combining Austrian Business Cycle Theory to the analysis.
Dr. Thornton said in an interview,
In the slump of a cycle, businesses that were thriving come to experience difficulties or go under. These errors aren’t specific to any one firm. They occur in tandem with whole sectors of the economy. People who were wealthy yesterday have become poor today. Factories that were busy yesterday are shut down today, and workers are out of jobs.
In a previous post, I argued that there is little evidence for the existence of a “war on cops,” at least when measured in terms of the number of police officers feloniously killed. Some readers suggested that such a measure is too simplistic and does not capture precisely what is meant by commentators when they call it a war. In response to this, I consulted one of foremost proponents of the war on cops narrative, Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute.
