The Winter 2015 issue of the Journal of Private Enterprise (http://journal.apee.org/index.php/Category:Winter_2015) features a symposium on the Bernanke-Yellen Fed that includes contributions by William Butos, Larry White, Steve Horwitz and Joseph T. Salerno. The issue also includes a symposium on Roger Garrison’s work with pieces by Robert F. Mulligan, Adrián Ravier, Mark Skousen, and Peter Boettke.

Ideas are all-important. Indeed, they are more powerful than armies, as Victor Hugo noted. But ideas are advanced by specific individuals, and inculcated in them, and historically tied to them.

How blessed are we that we have not a criminal like Marx nor a monster, like Keynes to follow, but Ludwig von Mises, a hero as well as a genius.

Mises was not only a dazzling economist and champion of liberty, but no Communist, nor Nazi, nor central banker could pressure him into doing the wrong thing.

A credit union in San Francisco is offering a $2 million, no down payment mortgage loan to borrowers. And while this is being offered by a credit union, credit unions of necessity being more cautious lenders than banks, and the credit union will no doubt vet potential borrowers very carefully, what could be more indicative of a bubble than a no down payment, adjustable rate jumbo loan?

“There are several steps that Congress should take right away. To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semiautomatic weapon? This is a matter of national security.”

– President Barack Obama

I do not regard homeownership rates as a proxy measure of economic prosperity. But, in the United States, increasing homeownership has long been a goal of federal policymakers, and Federal Reserve policy is often defended on the grounds that it makes homeownership more affordable through its efforts to force down interest rates. Moreover, homeownership does remain broadly popular in the United States as a common life goal and as an indicator of having achieved the so-called “American dream.”

Thanks to our friends at the Ludwig von Mises Institute Germany, Jeff Deist’s speech “PC is Control, Not Etiquette” has now been translated into German.

The Top Ten most-read articles for November, based on unique pageviews:

1. DEA Releases New Drug Overdose Death Figures: Guns Safer than Prescription Drugs by Ryan McMaken 

2. If Sweden and Germany Became US States, They Would be Among the Poorest States by Ryan McMaken 

Earlier today, Dr. David Gordon took to the Mises Institute’s Facebook page to answer questions submitted by our followers. 

Here’s the transcript: 

Q: Would Mises have advocated for socialism if it turned out that it was better than capitalism at satisfying people’s ends, encouraging economic growth, etc.? What about Rothbard?

The old Marxist apocalyptical fear of ever-rising inequality in capitalist societies is growing. The capitalist elite, it is said, benefit from a dynamic of infinite accumulation of wealth and will be able soon to buy everything and everybody, including the government. This fear of unlimited accumulation of wealth by a few was the main theme of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, published in French in 2013. For example, Piketty writes:

In the past, I have noted that, even using the official homicide rates uncritically, the US is not the outlier it is claimed to be in terms of homicide rates. Numerous countries with a Human Development Index values (according to the UN) comparable to several OECD members have homicide rates that are similar too, or much higher than, the US.