The Free Market 31, no. 12 (December 2013)

Mises Institute Senior Fellow Thomas Woods in October launched The Tom Woods Show, which quickly became a top-rated podcast on iTunes. Woods recently interviewed Mises Institute Chairman Lew Rockwell on the show, and toward the end of the interview, Woods asked Lew about his vision for the future of the Institute. The following is adapted from the interview:

Thomas Woods: What would you like to see the Institute doing that it isn’t doing today?

In the latest episode in the global War on Cash, Uruguay will ban all cash transactions for more than US$5,000.  The law is set to take effect May 2015 and also mandates that all taxes, no matter how small the sum owed, must be paid electronically. HT to Nick G

Soon you will no longer be able to purchase Switzerland’s finest watches for cash.  One of the last  bastions of financial privacy, a fundamental prerequisite of individual liberty, has succumbed to the global war on cash.  The Swiss Federal government is proposing to ban cash payments of more than 100,000 francs ($107, 500 at the current exchange rate) including on watches and real estate.

Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute, recently spoke with The Free Market about his introduction to the Austrian School and his work with Ron Paul.

The Free Market: How did you become interested in Austrian economics?

How large a problem is moral hazard caused by the Fed helping out troubled bank during financial crises? Pretty large, at least according to Jeffrey Lacker, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

The Free Market 32, no. 2 (February)

The first-ever libertarians were the Levellers, an English political movement active in the seventeenth century. The Levellers contributed to the elaboration of the methodological and political paradigm of individualism, and they are at the origin of the radical strand of classical liberalism. While the Levellers are often characterized as a quasi-socialist movement, closer examination shows that the Levellers had much more in common with advocates for free markets than with socialists.

The Free Market 32, no. 4 (April 2014)

One of my favorite economists in the history of economic thought is the great Austrian, Carl Menger (1840–1921). While the mainstream of the economics profession acknowledges Menger’s place due to his contribution to the Marginalist Revolution in the 1870s, it otherwise ignores him because his theoretical framework does not lend itself to policy prescriptions.

The Free Market 32, no. 4 (April 2014)

From CNN to Barron’s to Le Monde, Mark Thornton has been featured as an authority on how record-setting skyscrapers signal impending economic downturns. Last month, Dr. Thornton spoke with us about the  Skyscraper Index and the Skyscraper Curse.
 

The Free Market 32, no. 5 (May 2014)

Mises Institute: In recent years, we’ve seen more and more Austrian-tinged economic analysis coming from investors like Mark Spitznagel and Jim Rogers, to just name two. As someone personally involved in the investment world, have you yourself seen growth in Austrian ideas among investors and similar professionals?