With more financing in place, the world’s tallest skyscraper is moving forward.

Recent media reports indicate that the final segment of financing has been obtained for the $1.2 billion Jeddah Tower project in Saudi Arabia. This is the financing that would be necessary to bring the project to record heights. Media reports also show that the structure has risen to more than seventy-five meters (246 feet) and construction is proceeding at an uninterrupted pace.

The signatures have been collected and submitted paving the way for a vote to establish 100% reserve banking in Switzerland. In doing so, the Swiss people join with Iceland in attempting to abolish fractional reserve banking. According to the Telegraph:

Under Switzerland’s direct democracy, a referendum can be held if a motion gains 100,000 signatures within 18 months of launching.

Every Christmas for the past 25 years, Romanians have remembered the revolution of December 1989, and the communist regime that ended with it. Only few still think fondly of those days; many remember the regime for what it really was: a time of poverty, fear, and lack of freedom. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from everyone here at the Mises Institute!

As an exciting year comes to a close, we want to thank all of our incredible members that allow us to do the work we do in advancing Austrian economics, freedom, and peace.

Politico reported last week that half of British voters favor withdrawal of the UK from the European Union, also known as the “Brexit.” 

Jeff Deist on the Jay Taylor radio show discussing the Fed’s recent decision to raise interest rates. Jay and Jeff also discuss the IMF’s announcement that it would include the Chinese yuan in the basket of currencies used to calculate the value of special drawing rights.

Murray Rothbard had long dreamed of a fellowship program at the Mises Institute where students could work on research with the help of Austrian economists. In the twenty years since Rothbard’s death, the Mises Institute has worked with hundreds of graduate students to build a new generation of scholars.

It’s no news to Austrians that the world is suffering from a lack of economic understanding. With the sorry state of mainstream economics education, this economic illiteracy is an expected result. (And with the popular belief in large-scale, one-size-fits-all political solutions to [politically created] problems, dismissing economic sense is all but necessary.)