The BBC is running a story titled “Bizarre excuses for failing to pay the minimum wage”. The article follows an investigation by HM Revenues and Customs in the UK, which is organizing a government awareness campaign for underpaid workers. Some of the excuses are indeed hilarious and evidently made up on the go, such as “My accountant and I speak a different language—he doesn’t understand me and that’s why he doesn’t pay my workers the correct wages.”

Whenever politicians bring up the topic of “tax reform,” what they usually want is a reshuffling of taxes so changes to the tax code will look like a tax cut — without reducing tax revenues or lessening the tax burden. In other words, policymakers usually want a tax reform that is “revenue-neutral,” and this has been explicitly stated by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for years now. 

Talking to the proponents of the European Union whose interest in every day politics is rather marginal (and their knowledge of political thought superficial) one could arrive at a conclusion that very often their support for the project is not fueled by some interventionist sympathies for social engineering but a simple desire for closer integration between nations not inhibited by state-imposed regulations rooted in a nationalist mindset. Moreover, this mindset is consonant with the original plans for Europe conceived long ago by the spiritual founding fathers of the EU: Robert Schum

The Mises Reader is a new book available form the Mises Institute designed to help introduce the texts of Ludwig von Mises to both scholars and laymen alike. In this interview with Tom Woods, the book’s editor, Shawn Ritenour, discusses the book, Ludwig von Mises, and his work. 

In December the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in 2016, once again failing to meet its own expectations it set the year prior. Unfortunately forecasting failures at the Fed is nothing new, for years it has routinely missed on both rate hikes and GDP projections. While it’s unfair to expect Fed economists to be fortune tellers, crying wolf does have consequences.

Today is the 82nd birthday of Butler Shaffer, one of the great pioneers of the libertarian movement. Butler taught at the Freedom School of Robert LeFevre and, until his recent retirement, he was Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. He is an outstanding legal theorist and historian. In Boundaries of Order, he shows how people can establish a social order without the use or threat of force.

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 19, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 302–306

Entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) emigrated to the United States from Scotland at age 12, working entry-level jobs (bobbin boy, messenger, telegraph operator) that taught him about the importance of initiative and self-taught education. At age 17, Carnegie became a railroad superintendent’s personal secretary when his employer discovered he could read and write.

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 19, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 297–301

[Private Governance: Creating Order in Economic and Social Life by Edward P. Stringham]