Bashing the Japanese has become a popular American, if not international, sport. The objective is to fabricate “facts” and use them to demonstrate how Japan’s international trade policies create economic disruption that warrants retaliation.
Capitol Hill Gold Standard Conference A Special Report to Institute Members
The Ludwig von Mises Institute’s premier conference was held in Washington, D.C., on November 16–17, 1983. “The Gold Standard: An Austrian Perspective” was the first event of its kind. Not only was it the first academic conference ever held in the United States on the gold standard, but it took place on Capitol Hill.
Our country is beset by a large number of economic myths that distort public thinking on important problems and lead us to accept unsound and dangerous government policies. Here are ten of the most dangerous of these myths and an analysis of what is wrong with them.
Myth #1
Deficits are the cause of inflation; deficits have nothing to do with inflation.
The press touted it as yet another chapter in the unending success story of “government-business cooperation.” The traditional tale is that a glaring problem arises, caused by the unchecked and selfish actions of capitalist greed. And that then a wise and far-sighted government agency, seeing deeply and having only the public interest at heart, steps in and corrects the failure, its sage regulations gently but firmly bending private actions to the common good.
A little over twenty-five years ago a revolutionary event occurred in the world of business and in American society generally. It was a revolution accomplished without bloodshed and without anyone being executed. The Xerox 914, the world’s first fully-automated plain-paper copier, was exhibited to the press in New York City. B
Europe’s economic decline is the result of its propensity to nationalize private enterprises. In Europe, nationalized enterprises produce everything from pots and pans to cars and trucks. They even run hotel chains. The magnitude of this phenomenon is revealed in the figures for the public sector’s share of national investment: from 65% in Austria to 55% in France to 25% in Britain and 20% in West Germany.
For many years, America’s campuses have been sunk in political apathy. The values of the 1950s are supposed to be back, including concentration on one’s career and lack of interest in social or political causes.
It is well-known that bureaucracies, especially governmental bureaucracies, have an unparalleled ability to suffocate innovation. Perhaps not as well known is the ability of those same institutions to ignore systematically well-documented, empirically supportable precepts about how the world really works.
Each year at this time, schoolchildren all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all very colorful and fascinating.
It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths which divert attention away from Thanksgiving’s real meaning.
