Video: Mark Thornton Discusses the Unemployment Rate
Mark Thornton explains why the government’s latest unemployment numbers are a sham, and the labor market is nowhere near recovered.
Peter Klein on Power Trading Radio
John O’Donnell interviews Dr. Peter Klein of Mises.org on the critique of the popular new book “Capital in the 21stCentury” by Thomas Piketty. The topics include income inequality cause and effect, role of Fed intervention in capital markets, malinvestment in boom/bust cycles with anemic price discovery and the 99% vs the 1% myth. They also discuss why boomers are working longer and the impact of youth joining the workplace.
‘Some Basics of State Domination and Public Submission’ in French
Thanks to Contrpoints for the French translation of Robert Higgs’s article that appeared here. See: Les bases de la domination étatique et de la soumission populaire
Does Economic Openness Lead to Better Food Access?
Maybe better access to quality food leads to obesity and related health problems for much of the developed world. That, however, is a non-issue for the bulk of nations and people that lack access to quality food. My question is: On average, would a more open nation lead to better food access, quality, etc.?
A Note on “Human Capital”
Like Peter Lewin, Walter Block, Mario Rizzo, and Peter Boettke, I greatly admire the late Gary Becker, a pioneer in many areas of e
On This Day in 1914...
…newspapers buzzed with the news that former Secretary of State Richard Olney declined President Woodrow Wilson’s request that he serve as the first head of the newly-created Federal Reserve Board.
On This Day in 1914
…newspapers buzzed with the news that former Secretary of State Richard Olney declined President Woodrow Wilson’s request that he serve as the first head of the newly-created Federal Reserve Board.
Health Care and the Candy Store Called Socialism
Some 27 years ago, I spent two weeks in Yugoslavia, the supposed workers’ paradise cobbled together by the strong arm of Marshal Tito. And, if my memory serves, the country was an overflowing candy store — a middle schooler’s sweet-toothed delight. Socialism as a candy store? Sure. But you have to consider the question and its answer in context.
Gary Becker, RIP
Gary Becker passed away on May 4, 2014 at age 83. There will be many obituaries written about this Nobel Prize winning economist, focusing on his numerous and important contributions to the dismal science. Here, instead, I will tell a more personal story, my own private interactions with my first mentor, Gary Becker.
Debunking Free Market Materialism
Murray Rothbard once noted that “One of the most common charges leveled against the free market is that it reflects and encourages unbridled ‘selfish materialism’…it distracts man from higher ideals. It leads man away from spiritual or intellectual values and atrophies any spirit of altruism.”
Ludwig von Mises may have laid out the issue even more clearly in Liberalism.
