Probably the most common question that has been hurled at me—in some exasperation—over the years is: “Why don’t you stick to economics?” For different reasons, this question has been thrown at me by fellow economists and by political thinkers and activists of many different persuasions: Conservatives, Liberals, and Libertarians who have disagreed with me over political doctrine and are annoyed that an economist should venture “outside of his discipline.”
[Editor’s note: Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Thursday declared “you put the supply out there and the demand will follow.” It appears that Perry was attempting to invoke Say’s Law, and many professional economists and pundits quickly took to mocking both Perry and Say’s Law for making assertions contrary to modern Keynesian orthodoxy. Below, economist Per Bylund explains what Say’s Law really says, and why it’s a good thing.]
Seven Cuban libertarians and activists with the Mises-Mambi Institute of Cuba were arrested on Friday morning. Among those arrested were president Caridad Ramirez, national spokesman Nelson Rodriguez Chartrand, and Alexis Muñoz Jimenez , the Mises-Mambi regional president for Camaguey province. The motivation of the mass arrest seems to be to prevent the Cuban libertarians from attending the trial of imprisoned Mises activists Ubaldo Herrera and Manuel Velazquez.
In a previous article, I wrote about how the war on drugs and the government monopoly on the legal system has created the Tragedy of the Commons in our justice system. Because legislators and police officers have every incentive to appear “tough on crime” but the cost of the sending a criminal to a courtroom is socialized, the courts have become increasingly backlogged. What that article did not cover is the related “commons problem” in the prison system and the consequences that follow.
In his writings, Milton Friedman blamed central bank policies for causing the Great Depression. According to Friedman, the Federal Reserve failed to pump enough reserves into the banking system to prevent a collapse in the money stock (see Free to Choose). In response to this failure, Friedman argued the money stock M1, which stood at $28.264 billion in October 1929; fell to $19.039 billion by April 1933 – a decline of almost 33%.
This week America celebrated its Independence day, a holiday dedicated to honoring, as Ryan McMaken noted, “a document that promotes secession, rebellion, and what the British at the time regarded as treason.” In spite of our own government’s attempts to hijack it for simply another celebration of sterile patriotic pride, the success of America’s inherently radical revolution is a moment of
In December 2016, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) nationalized Ukraine’s largest private bank for what we now know was an incorrect understanding of the facts. It remains unclear who benefitted from this expropriation.
But it wasn’t just a misunderstanding. The nationalization of PrivatBank very likely was the result of a still-unexplained refusal by the NBU to accept the financial reality of the situation.
First they came for the inmates’ cash. . . .
In Britain as in America, the modern metropolitan left at this point seems to be defined by little more than its bemusing inclination toward self-sabotage.
