Largely overlooked by the media in light of Trump’s leaked Access Hollywood video and Sunday’s presidential debate has been the volumes of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta released by Wikileaks. One revelation that has gained some traction are some of the remarks Secretary Clinton made while speaking to Wall Street bankers, in which she takes a very different position on trade agreements than what she has taken during her campaign. One email notes a speech where she says:

It has become commonplace to note that the 2016 election campaign is unlike any America has seen before. Whether it is the issues brought to the fore, the number of scandals, or the intensity of the personal invective, it is hard to believe we are now within the bounds of what our founders had in mind.

Murray Rothbard discusses the merits and morality of voting in a 1972 interview with The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal.

NEW BANNER:  Some libertarians have recommended anti-voting activities during the 1972 election. Do you agree with this tactic?

In the 2016 presidential election, Americans have been given a choice between two types of controlled and managed trade. On the one hand, there is Donald Trump who favors outright protectionism and controlled trade for the benefit of select industries and companies. On the other hand, there is Hillary Clinton who favors trade treaties in order to manage trade. Although she seems to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it is only because she does not believe this treaty to be “fair.” That is, for Clinton, the TPP is not protectionist enough.

[Debating Gun Control: How Much Regulation Do We Need? By David DeGrazia and Lester H. Hunt. Oxford University Press, 2016. Xvi + 269 pages.]

The authors are well-qualified for a good debate, and the book does not disappoint. Hunt is a philosopher of libertarian inclinations who has written books on Nietzsche, human character, and Robert Nozick. In my view, he is a thinker of genuine depth. DeGrazia is best known for work on animal rights and on bioethics.

This talk was delivered at the Boston Mises Circle on October 1, 2016.

The government thrives on regulation, and when new and burgeoning markets find themselves operating in unregulated territories, it doesn’t take long for the state to intervene.

Technological advances have been leading us away from a physical-cash-based society for some time. Debit and credit cards have been the preferred substitutions to physical money, and now young Americans are utilizing peer to peer online and smartphone technology as an alternative to traditional banking.

Given the still-subdued economic growth many experts are of the view that the presence of cash has constrained central banks from setting negative rates to stimulate the subdued economic activity. In a future economic or financial crisis, current low rates would restrict the effectiveness of monetary policy, so it is held.

Columbus Day this year brought with it the usual acrimony, and this Salon article hit the usual talking points by declaring European settlement of the Americas to be “the most massive act of genocide” in world history. 

The 2016 Nobel Prize in economics was awarded today to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström, two of the most eminent economists specializing in the analysis of contracting and organizational structure.