Recently the Fed released research stating that it encouraged moral hazard and risk taking with its QE programs. Never one to fall behind, now the International Monetary Fund is in on the trick.

“Every man,” argued the philosopher William Godwin, “has a certain sphere of discretion, which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.” Market anarchists agree with Godwin and thus oppose the state simply as one specific example of invasion or aggression against peaceful individuals. After all, by definition, governments must aggress against innocents just to exist.

[Editor’s Note: Non-profits are often wrongly characterized as being “creations of government” that arose only as a response to the tax rules. In this Mises Daily article from 2006, Karen De Coster defends non-profits on historical and philanthropic grounds.]

Nonprofit organizations play an integral role in a free market economy. The establishment of a voluntary nonprofit organization is not merely an exercise for obtaining tax-exempt status for wealth protection within a burdensome tax system, though that is a splendid end in its own right.

According to mainstream economics textbooks, one of the primary functions of money is to measure the value of goods and services exchanged on the market. A typical statement of this view is given by Frederic Mishkin in his textbook on money and banking. “[M]oney ... is used to measure value in the economy,” he claims. “We measure the value of goods and services in terms of money, just as we measure weight in terms of pounds and distance in terms of miles.”

One of the great economic myths of our time is Japan’s “lost decades.” As Japan doubles-down on inflationary stimulus, it’s worth reviewing the facts.

The truth is that the Japanese and US economies have performed in lock-step since 2000, and their performances have matched each other going as far back as 1980.

Either Japan’s not in crisis, or the US has been in crisis for a good thirty-five years. You can’t have it both ways.

What does it take to change the world? Do you need to launch an intellectual revolution, such as Martin Luther? Must you commit murder in the name of egalitarianism à la Joseph Stalin? Is it possible to make a difference while living a humble life?

Something tells me Walter Block and many others will find this cartoon highly entertaining.

I was pleased recently to read an article by Ira Katz extolling the virtues of Sir Harry Flashman, V.C. The Flashman Papers, a series of books written by the late George MacDonald Fraser, are a personal favorite. Unfortunately, one seldom sees any reference to this enormously underrated set of historical novels.

So far in August the differential between the yield on the 10-year Treasury note and the yield on the 3-month Treasury bill stands at 2.38 percent against 2.95 percent in December 2013.

Historically, the yield differential on average has led the yearly rate of growth of industrial production by fourteen months. This raises the likelihood that the growth momentum of industrial production will ease in the months ahead, all other things being equal.

John Tamny recently wrote a piece at Forbes titled, “The Closing of the Austrian School’s Economic Mind” in which he critiqued certain claims made in Frank Hollenbeck’s Mises Daily article, “Confusing Capitalism with Fractional Reserve Banking.”