The Trump-Musk assassination troops going through the federal bureaucracy will eventually arrive at an oddball entity called the Federal Reserve. It is and isn’t many things, which if confusion is your sport, is part of its charm.
This series explores the complex systems that shape our world—how individuals fit within them, how we can confidently face the unknown, and why understanding complexity is key to human thriving.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is an early study of crowd psychology by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in 1841 under the title Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions. The book was published in three volumes: “National Delusions”, “Peculiar Follies,” and “Philosophical Delusions.”
The first three chapters address economic events to include:
In a recent column, Paul Craig Roberts wrote that tariffs not only made international trade possible, but that they were merely a tax on consumption and were neutral elsewhere—and should be much-preferred to income taxes. He wrote:
William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote in 1952, “We have to accept Big Government for the duration [of the Cold War]—for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged . . . except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores.” Since, the conservative establishment has sacrificed the nation at the altar of defeating the latest boogeyman abroad. They have accepted bureaucracy in place of markets, technocracy in place of community, the welfare state in place of charity, and the cult of state in place of church.
Episode 2604 of The Tom Woods Show released on February 8, 2025, entitled, “Is the U.S. Headed for Breakup (in the Long Run)?” interviewed Ryan McMaken, Senior Editor of The Mises Institute. The main topic was the breakup of the United States in the long run, also called secession.
