While gross domestic product is considered by many to be the most important statistic regarding our economic well-being, Austrian and non-Austrian economists alike have criticized it as being an unsound representation of the health of an economy. Readers of mises.org are probably familiar with these arguments and I am not going to rehash these critiques.

However, some of the criticisms of this statistic misrepresent how the statistic is determined. I think it would be instructive to explain how GDP is calculated.

I was born in Iowa, raised in the mountains of Virginia, and attended Virginia Tech sporadically from 1974 to 1976 before dropping out to try my luck writing. At some point in the late 1970s, individual liberty became my highest political value and I resolved to do what I could to defend it. I had seen the federal government sabotage the currency, ravage southeast Asia with an unjust war, and tumble into disgrace with the Watergate scandal.

“Never let a crisis go to waste,” the old adage goes, and the coronavirus fiasco has demonstrated this principle in action more times than one can count. From declarations of veritable society-wide house arrest to crazed government spending and monetary policy, there has been no shortage of opportunistic actors working to live out their dreams of power and dominion over others that “normal” times would not allow.

An Illinois politicians wants the state board of education to get rid of history classes until the curriculum can be made less racist. The local NBC affiliate reports:

Leaders in education, politics and other areas gathered in suburban Evanston Sunday to ask that the Illinois State Board of Education change the history curriculum at schools statewide, and temporarily halt instruction until an alternative is decided upon….

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

Just two days after Trump’s nominee Judy Shelton was approved by the Senate committee, it was Mitt Romney (R), senator of Utah, who said:

I’m not going to be endorsing Judy’s Shelton’s nomination to the Fed.

We’re pleased to announce our newest project, Economics for Beginners! Please take a moment to check out the page and share with your friends and family.

As Ludwig von Mises understood, the fate of civilization rests upon the ideas that motivate the masses. If we fail to win the battle of ideas, we will see the horrors of history repeated.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

The weeks-long coronavirus lockdown is being exposed as, at best, a wild overreaction. Americans are starting to protest the destruction of their economy, the loss of their jobs, and the attacks on their basic constitutional rights. The walls of oppression built by the petty tyrants throughout the country are beginning to crack.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

In response to my article last week opposing the use of federal soldiers and federal agents on the streets of American cities, my inbox and the article’s comment section filled up with readers claiming that it most certainly is the job of the US federal government to step in and take