In his The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money, John M. Keynes criticized, without citing or mentioning him explicitly, Hayek’s (Austrian) primary policy recommendation: the best way to avoid a bust is prevention.
To complement George Reisman’s article yesterday:
Fast-food workers across the county have recently held a number of high profile protests to agitate for higher wages. These protests have been accompanied by efforts to increase the wages mandated by state and local minimum wage laws, as well as a renewed push in some states and localities to pass “living wage” laws. President Obama has proposed raising the federal minimum wage to ten dollars an hour.
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
As 2013 draws to a close, let’s pause to recall some important developments for the cause of liberty – some of which you already know well, and others you’ll be hearing about for the first time.
Edward Snowden. After sitting on the Bush-era warrantless wiretapping story for 18 months, the New York Times revealed a portion of the surveillance activities of the US government in 2005. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know that the National Security Agency’s spying activities vastly exceeded anything we heard about in the media.
Philipp Bagus and Andreas Marquart have co-authored a new introductory text on monetary policy for German-language readers.
Here’s a brief description:
Pharmaceutical drug manufacturers are often regarded as the successes of the intellectual property regime. It is assumed that their willingness to take risks by investing heavily in R&D is justified by the awarding of patents over their lifesaving discoveries. Proponents of intellectual property claim that without patents many lifesaving drugs would not exist. They assert that generic drug manufacturers would diminish profit margins and dissipate the original manufacturer’s market share and innovation would come to a virtual standstill.
p>My replacement at Metro State, Nicolas Cachanosky, continues to write interesting, challenging papers in the Austrian tradition faster than those of us used to the slower pace of retirement can read them. His most recent is “Hayek’s Rule, NGDP Targeting, and the Productivity Norm: Theory and Application.” Cachanosky notes:
The always interesting and informative Richard Ebeling is doing regular commentary at EPICTiMES. His most recent is “Don’t fear Deflation, Unless Caused by Government.” Here Ebeling effectively refutes arguments made by Bernanke and Yellen that the Fed’s massive monetary base expansion was necessary to fight recession and prevent deflation.
Highlights:
