In case you missed it live, here’s is the archived interview with Jeff Deist on Power Trading Radio from November 21. 

The “Wells Fargo Economics Group” opines in its daily email: 

The meltdown in oil prices has been touted in the media as the salvation of the consumer and business alike, the proverbial Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer that saves Christmas. Other have correctly cautioned that the collapse in oil prices threatens certain high-cost producers, notably the shale oil producers in the US and Canada. 

World War I marks one of the great watersheds of modern history. With its end the transformation of the entire Western world from monarchical rule and sovereign kings to democratic-republican rule and sovereign people that began with the French Revolution was completed. Until 1914, only three republics had existed in Europe — France, Switzerland and after 1911, Portugal; and of all major European monarchies only the United Kingdom could be classified as a parliamentary system, i. e., one in which supreme power was vested in an elected parliament.

Nathaniel Branden died today. He was for many years the leading follower of Ayn Rand and  lectured widely on her philosophy of Objectivism. He and Rand split in 1968, and after that his main work was in the psychology of self-esteem. He was by all accounts a dynamic and effective lecturer. For a brief time, Murray Rothbard and his followers in the Circle Bastiat met with Rand and her group, and through these meetings Rothbard came to know Branden.

Senator Ted Stevens once explained that the Internet is a “series of tubes” and “not a big truck.” Steven’s comments made me a little sad, since I worried we’d never again hear such idiocy from a senior government official. Had we reached peak stupid on Capitol Hill?

There was a ray of hope a few years back when Congressman Hank Johnson shared, in Committee, his fears that if too many people move to Guam it might “tip over and capsize.”

Johnson is a well-known fool, though, so I was cautious yet. Maybe we just got lucky. Maybe stupid really was over.

Lew Rockwell writes:

The Judge discusses his brave, important, and beautifully written new book Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty.

BTW, the book is available in our store.

Voters Love Government Programs (Even if They Claim To Be Unhappy With the Government Itself)

Here at Mises.org, we don’t often follow the ins and outs of elections, since no single election tells us much of anything about the direction in which the country is headed. And this certainly remains true for the election of 2014.