Back when I was an undergrad, I took a class called something like “The Politics of National Defense.” This was not a class about international relations, but about the bureaucracy behind the U.S. Military. It was taught by a retired Army officer. Thus began a long education about how government bureaucracies function, and it quickly became clear that all those chest-thumping military enthusiasts who think the US Military is some kind of well-oiled machine helmed by brilliant minds live in a fantasy land.

Tom Woods writes:

Steve Forbes was on the Dennis Miller radio show last night promoting his new book about the dollar.  Based on his comments to Mr. Miller, the book proposes something conceptually similar to John Taylor’s “rule-based” Fed, i.e. pegging the US dollar to gold at (say) $1200 per ounce.  If gold rises to $1300, the Fed decreases the supply of dollars.  It it falls to $1100, the Fed inflates.

Course Description: A new history of the Great Depression is emerging. One that acknowledges the role that government played in causing and prolonging it, and the constructive role that free enterprise could have played, if it were given the chance. In this video, UCLA economist Lee Ohanian explains how Herbert Hoover, widely misunderstood as a champion of the free market, actually turned what should have just been a recession into a depression due to his mistrust of the market.

Once upon a time it was claimed that the government’s debt didn’t matter because we “owe it to ourselves.” Each government bond is a claim on taxpayers, and if all of the bondholders are taxpayers from the same country the size of the debt would be irrelevant to the total sum of the country’s financial wealth.

Bob Murphy did a good job some years ago dispelling several myths of this reasoning.

At the Oxford Union, debates are carried out in teams.

In the heat of the crisis back in 2011, I edited the book “Institutions in Crisis.” The emphasis was on the policy failings at the root of the European crisis, and how they were exacerbating the situation rather than bettering it.

Three years on much of the analysis still stands. In fact, a number of chapters have proven quiet prescient, for example:

Thanks to Walter Block who recently posted this photo on his Facebook page:

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Mises Institute Archives

David Brat, the economist at Randolph -Macon college who defeated Eric Cantor in that GOP primary in Virginia, said recently that wage increases are only appropriate when a worker’s productivity increases. This is pretty standard economist stuff that any economics undergraduate learns. That is, a worker’s employment can only be sustained in the long run if his productivity is equal to or greater than the wage he receives. In the case of the minimum, wage, this makes it impossible to hire a person whose productivity is below the legal wage.

French Socialist President Francois Hollande won his election in 2012 on a platform to soak the rich and protect the generous welfare state. Now his Prime Minister Manuel Valls is warning that such policies could cause the French left to disappear unless Socialist party supporters start backing the government’s business-friendly reforms.