Politics and Inequality
The Federal Reserve has just released a survey indicating that income and wealth inequality has been growing in the United States since 2007. Meanwhile, President Obama has called for government action to reduce inequality.
Polygamy and Free Association
Marriage has long had a significant economic aspect to it, and states know this, which is why they have fought so long and hard to regulate and control it. Families, of course, are a basic part of any economy, and historically, they form one of the foundational building blocks of a society’s economy.
Consequently, it’s not surprising at all that the American federal government has involved itself in marriage-related matters that are seemingly local in nature.
Finally, the Fed Blames Itself
This is an historic time. After six years of the most novel and expansive monetary policies since its creation 100 years ago, the Fed is finally ready to admit its role in prolonging the current recession... kind of.
Understanding the Cold War: A Bibliography
I recommend that readers begin with the essay by Murray Rothbard listed here. As Rothbard often stressed, one cannot infer a nation’s foreign policy from the nature of its domestic regime. Communist totalitarianism did not necessitate an aggressive foreign policy; and in the post-World War II period, Rothbard contended, Russian foreign policy was largely defensive in character. The main Communist danger to America was internal rather than external.
Happy Birthday, Hans
Today is the sixty-fifth birthday of Hans-Hermann Hoppe. In the Preface to his The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, Hans says: “My largest debt is to Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard, the twentieth century’s two greatest—though much neglected—economists and social philosophers.” Hans is the worthy successor of these great thinkers; and, like them, he is devoted to freedom and utterly rejects compromise. In The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, he argues that all deviations from the free market are forms of socialism.
Austrians, Fractional Reserves, and the Money Multiplier
Leading Keynesian Economist Uses The “D” Word
Most Keynesian economists do not want to admit that we are in another depression. They find the word painful.
They find it painful because it contradicts the idea that Keynesian economic ideas have ended depressions forever. It also contradicts the idea that the massive and continuing Keynesian stimulus applied by world governments since 2008 has worked. For this and other reasons, euphemisms such as the Great Recession have been embraced not only by Keynesian economists, but by their allies in government and in the mainstream press.
Conservative Incoherence on National “Defense”
They extend the WWII argument to all other wars.
Did the Mexicna war make us free? How about the invasion of Grenada?
They also reject Henry’s arguments about the preservation of liberty -
And then there’s crovelli’s point about the right to bear arms and a large military.
As well as 18th century arguments against standing armies.
Must Free-Marketers Reject Global Warming?
You can’t make this stuff up. Someone at the UK Guardian named David Grimes has declared that “economic liberalism,” by which he means the ideology of laissez-faire, “clashes” with “scientific evidence.” Which scientific evidence, you might ask? Well, the unassailable scientific dogma of global warming is one:
