President Donald Trump sparked controversy — as is his wont — when he recently told CNBC that he was “not thrilled” with the Federal Reserve’s announced hikes in short-term interest rates, which he claimed would hinder the economic expansion for which his administration had worked so hard. “I’m letting them [the Fed] do what they feel is best,” he added, but this assurance was not enough to prevent journalists and policy experts from pronouncing Trump’s remarks as unprecedented interference with the central bank’s independence.

[This article is adapted from Claudio Grass’s commentary on Lew Rockwell’s acceptance speech for the Roland Baader Prize, awarded earlier this year in Hamburg, Germany.]

A few days ago, I had the pleasure to step in as an Ambassador for the Mises Institute and receive the Roland Baader Prize on behalf of Lew Rockwell, as he unfortunately wasn’t able to travel to Germany due to health issues.

A new North-American trade deal is in the works between the U.S.

Last month, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration had been pressuring other countries at the UN to oppose a resolution supporting more widespread use of breastfeeding. This was, in turn, portrayed by much of the media as the Trump administration taking a stance “against breastfeeding,” which is today almost universally regarded as a superior form of nutrition for infants, when compared to baby formula.

In this era of monetary fiction, one tends to read all types of undocumented and misguided views on monetary policy. However, if there is one that really is infuriating: MMT science fiction.

One of its main principles is based on a fallacy: “A country with monetary sovereignty can issue all the debt it needs without default risk.”

Congratulations to Dr. Steve Hanke, an Associate Scholar of the Mises Institute, for being named the “ECAEF Gottfried von Haberler Professor” by the European Center of Austrian Economics Foundation in Vaduz, Liechtenstein.

The position is named for Gottfried von Haberler, a leading scholar in the Austrian tradition and a mentor to Dr. Hanke. 

[Editor’s note: our immigration roundtable is a series of articles presenting the views of prominent Austrian and libertarian thinkers. By necessity each article provides only a basic overview of those views, with links to original sources.]

Our goal is to present each thinker’s views on immigration by excerpting his or her writings on the subject.

In a recent column titled, “Capitalism, Socialism, and Unfreedom,” Paul Krugman lambasted libertarians for equating “freedom” with minimal government. He ridiculed the recently updated Cato index that ranks the 50 U.S. states according to their “freedom” defined in this fashion.

The centenary of the First World War is drawing to a close, but if there is any justice in the world, the conflict will live in infamy for many centuries to come. Few events have captured as perfectly the death of peace and liberty and the triumph of militarism and statism as the Great War. It not only sent millions to the slaughter and annihilated the last achievements of liberalism, but paved the way for even greater devastation less than a generation after.