Late last week, UK PM David Cameron announced that UK and EU officials had come to an agreement that would give the UK a better “deal” as a member of the EU. That is, Cameron was forced by Euroskeptics in Britain to extract concessions from the EU government as a condition of staying in the EU.
The hope among Europhiles is that this will be a enough to convince the British voting population to vote to stay in the EU in a coming June 23 referendum on EU membership.
Several states — including Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska — have, for now, successfully nullified the federal prohibition on the possession, sale, and production of marijuana. But that doesn’t mean the federal government is totally powerless in the matter.
Robert Luddy explains today at The American Spectator how the Fed’s fixation on promoting price inflation is a big problem:
The Fed’s policies severely undermine the middle class by making goods and services more expensive. For example, an average American family loses $700 in purchasing power if inflation is 2% annually.
Chapter 7: Ludwig von Mises and the Paradigm for Our Age
Unquestionably the most significant and challenging development in the historiography of science in the last decade is the theory of Thomas S. Kuhn.
Chapter 6: Statistics: Achilles’ Heel of Government
Ours is truly an Age of Statistics. In a country and an era that worships statistical data as super “scientific,” as offering us the keys to all knowledge, a vast supply of data of all shapes and sizes pours forth upon us. Mostly, it pours forth from government. While private agencies and trade associations do gather and issue some statistics, they are limited to specific wants of specific industries. The vast bulk of statistics is gathered and disseminated by government.
The perennial promises of free stuff from political candidates are front and center again now that we are ensnared in another US election cycle. The knee-jerk response from some economists and libertarians is “TANSTAAFL!” And of course it’s true that There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, because somebody must bear the costs of the supposedly “free” stuff. Nothing is free because every action has an opportunity cost.
Chapter 5: Value Implications of Economic Theory
Economics, as a science, attempts and claims to be purely value-free; that is, separate from the personal, valuational, or political proclivities of the economist. And yet economics and economists are continually making political pronouncements; economics per se is shot through with value-loaded assumptions, usually implicit, which then emerge as political conclusions and recommendations. It is my contention that this procedure is illegitimate and unscientific, and that it is incumbent on economic theory to purge itself of all vestiges of the unsupported value judgment.
Section II: Foundations of Social Science and the Free Society
Chapter 4: The Discipline of Liberty
Probably the most common question that has been hurled at me—in some exasperation—over the years is: “Why don’t you stick to economics?” For different reasons, this question has been thrown at me by fellow economists and by political thinkers and activists of many different persuasions: Conservatives, Liberals, and Libertarians who have disagreed with me over political doctrine and are annoyed that an economist should venture “outside of his discipline.”
Chapter 3: Murray Rothbard in The New Banner
Managing Editor’s Note: Having never met Murray Rothbard prior to this interview I was only aware of his scholarly side—through his writings; I had no conception of the type of personality which I was to encounter. Donald Stone, editor of the libertarian newsletter Pegasus and friend of The New Banner, who accompanied me and assisted in the interview, had only briefly met Murray Rothbard on one occasion a year before. We were both quite pleased, therefore, to discover that his esteemed reputation as a scholar was matched by his joviality and candor as a host and conversationalist.
