The Eclipse: How Markets Could Have Prevented the “Traffic Nightmare”
In a typical illustration of how the news media resorts to exaggeration and hyperbole in order to seem relevant, the national media promised us “chaos” and a traffic “nightmare” in cities and towns where a total eclipse could be viewed yesterday.
How Rand Paul Can Free Americans from the Fed
Ever since entering the Senate, Rand Paul has continued his father’s work in advocating for an audit of the Federal Reserve. This week, writing for the Daily Caller, Senator Paul renewed his efforts, illustrating how the recent era of unconventional monetary policy has made an audit all the more important:
Ron Paul Reacts to Trump’s Afghanistan Speech
On Twitter, Ron Paul reacted to President Donald Trump’s speech last night calling for increasing US presence in Afghanistan.
Austrian Monetary Theory vs. Federal Reserve Inflation Targeting
One of the leading policy guideposts for central banks and many monetary policy proponents nowadays is the idea of “inflation targeting.” Several major central banks around the world, including the Federal Reserve in the United States, have set a goal of two percent price inflation. The problem is, what central bankers are targeting is a phantom that does not exist.
Ron Paul Institute Statement on Trump’s Afghanistan Speech
Like me, many of you watched President Trump’s train wreck of a speech on Afghanistan earlier tonight. It’s nearly midnight and I am still reeling.
Why Was Ancient China so Good at War, and so Bad at Commerce?
China’s rise to the status of global economic power has invited enormous interest in its cultural and political heritage. Historians tend to be fascinated by China’s erratic economic progress and rich history of innovation, each of which have, at different times, both outpaced and lagged behind developments in Western Europe. In particular, many questions surround the reasons for China’s “great divergence”—why Western Europe industrialized and China did not.
Murray Rothbard: An Uncompromising Optimist
Murray Rothbard has been gone more than 20 years now, his brilliance, wit, and irreplaceable insights taken from us far too soon. At home in New York City over a Christmas break from his teaching duties at the University of Nevada, Rothbard accompanied his beloved wife Joey to her optometrist appointment on a bitterly cold day. A few moments later, on January 7th 1995, he was gone — lost to heart failure at the age of 68.
The Levellers: The First Libertarians
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.