Memorial Day provides the political class countless opportunities to ruin an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable holiday weekend. Like clockwork, local congressmen, mayors, city council members, et al. materialize at parades, picnics, and churches to give speeches about “freedom.”
But what does freedom really mean?
States have always thrived on the fear of the taxpayers, and states have always justified their existence in part on the idea that without the state, we’d all be overrun by barbarians, or murdered by our neighbors. Charles Tilly, a historian of the state, frequently noted that the modern state as we know it, was born out of war, and was created to wage war. War and the state are inseparable.
The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics
by John B. Judis
Columbia Global Reports, 2016
The Trump administration released its 2018 budget this week. Once again we saw the media try to play up decreases in proposed spending as a form of draconian cuts, ignoring the fact that Trump’s plan still reflects a significant increase in federal programs.
T. Hunt Tooley is chairman of the department of history at Austin College and an Associated Scholar of the Mises Institute. In this interview with The Austrian, Dr. Tooley examines what we can learn today from the First World War.
THE AUSTRIAN: It has now been 100 years since the United States entered the First World War. Was getting involved in foreign wars in this way a break from past policy, or was the US already going in this direction?
As I’ve traveled around the country making speeches at college campuses, I’ve noticed that very few young people want war. In fact, I’d say that 90 percent of the people I come into contact with are opposed to new wars. So, the question is this: If so few people seem to want war, why do we keep getting so many of them?
The answer lies on how politics works in Washington, DC, and it lies in what kinds of people want political power.
Thanks to public apathy, combined with aggressive politicians, we get wars, even when so much of the population doesn’t want them.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news before a three day weekend, but St. Louis Fed President James Bullard informs us that ”U.S. prices are now 4.6 percent below the price level path established from 1995 to 2012, when inflation was growing near the Fed’s target of 2 percent each year.”
This lower than expected price level is deeply “worrisome,” for Bullard.
Economic impact studies are everywhere.
Whether it’s to support a new highway project, special tax breaks for solar energy, the building of a civic center or sports complex, or to promote subsidies for Hollywood film producers, you can find an economic impact study, often touting how great the project will be for the state or local economy.
