Economists have a grumbling and cynical stereotype. This might be because even the most basic economic principles are ignored by those who should know better and vehemently denied by those who don’t.

Case in point: a restricted supply of gasoline is expected across the Eastern United States because of a busted pipeline, and state governors enact price ceilings to keep the price of gasoline artificially low.

In Alabama, Governor Bentley forbade “unconscionable prices for the sale of any commodity” in his State of Emergency proclamation.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided yet again today to hold off on raising the target federal funds rate. Not much changed in the language of the FOMC statement, with the Fed believing that the labor market continues to strengthen and that economic activity is picking up. The FOMC continues to see economic activity expanding, the labor market strengthening, and thus a stronger case for an increase in the federal funds rate.

On the night between the 23rd and the 24th of August, panic hit the central cities of Italy in the wake of an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 on the richter scale. 295 deaths, 293 severely damaged medieval churches, and semi-destroyed cities (including Amatrice, Accumoli, and Pescara del tronto) were the result.

According to The Daily Mail, a recent study suggests that people value ordinary objects differently depending on what they are told about the objects 

According to the new research, being told that something is art automatically changes our response to it, both on a neural and a behavioural level. 

2016’s edition of Labor Day followed a well-established tradition — unions claiming credit for every worker gain. Among their most common assertions, often incorporated in attributing negative wage trends to eroding union power, was that unions raise all workers’ wages. Unfortunately, unions retard rather than raise others’ real earning power.

Oh, what a difference a few years make.

After the Crash of ‘08, the Fed entered a period of “extraordinary” monetary policy marked by large scale purchases of Treasuries and other (worse) securities from commercial banks. This process, termed quantitative easing, began in November 2008 as a supposedly temporary measure to provide liquidity (and thus operational stability) to the banking sector. A Wall Street crisis would become a Main Street crisis otherwise, the story went.

[Jeff Deist’s comments at the 2016 Mises Supporters Summit in Asheville, North Carolina, September 16.]

Before we hear from Judge Napolitano, I’d like to speak briefly tonight about where we are as a society, and what role the Mises Institute plays, or ought to play, in that society.

Most of the country is caught up in the presidential election, following the latest news about Hillary’s health or Trump’s pronouncements.

But there’s an opportunity here.

Can the Bank of England Really Take Credit for the Post-Brexit Boom?

In the months leading up to June’s Brexit referendum, the British public found themselves bludgeoned by a series of increasingly dire warnings concerning the consequences of a vote to leave the European Union.