[Excerpted from The Austrian.]

It was just a matter of time before Western governments used the trumped up “War on Terror” as an excuse to drastically ratchet up the very real war on the use of cash and personal privacy that they are waging against their own citizens   Taking advantage of public anxiety in the wake of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket, France has taken the first step.

Some myths die hard. The myth of the gender wage gap is one that’s had particularly long legs. Right after winning an Academy Award, Patricia Arquette proclaimed that “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America” to thunderous applause.

At last week’s AERC, I was privileged to take part in a session celebrating Joe Salerno’s contributions to economics, as well as his role as a mentor to many young Austrians.

Mises Daily Friday by Edin Mujagic:

Data from Japan, Spain, Greece, and the Netherlands all suggest that deflation is not the disaster many economists suggest it is. In fact, there’s good reason to believe that economies really start to take off when prices fall the most.

Below are all the named lectures from this year’s Austrian Economics Research Conference, including:

“On Man, Nature, Truth, and Justice“ by Hans-Hermann Hoppe,

“Government Barriers to Economic Growth“ by John Tamny of Forbes Magazine, Editor of Real Clear Markets, 

For weeks, if not months, investors have been agonizing over whether or not the Fed would remove the word “patient” from its assessment of monetary policy. The word indeed was removed at today’s Fed meeting. Chairman Janet Yellen, recognizing that the markets were acutely aware of the significance and meaning of the word “patient,” was quick to explain that just because the word was removed the Fed had no intention on being “impatient.” In other words, the word is important but the central bank’s policy may forever be in flux.

Some economists have been arguing that the “equilibrium real interest rate” (that is the “natural interest rate” or the “originary interest rate”) has become negative, as a “secular stagnation” has allegedly caused a “savings glut.”1