Misesians in Mordor: The Video
Ron Paul, Joseph Salerno, John Cochran, and Lawrence White on fractional reserve banking and the Federal Reserve.
Written testimonies here.
Fractional Reserves and Economic Instability
[Testimony before the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology of the Committee on Financial Services, US House of Representatives “Fractional Reserve Banking and Central Banking as Sources of Economic Instability: The Sound Money Alternative,” June 28, 2012]
Classical Liberalism and the Special Interests
“There is no class that could champion liberalism for its own selfish interests to the detriment of the whole of society and the other strata of the population, simply because liberalism serves no special interest....When the liberal comes before the electorate as a candidate for public office and is asked by those whose votes he solicits what he or his party intends to do for them and their group, the only answer he can give is: Liberalism serves everyone, but it serves no special interest.”
Hayek on Business Cycles: Part 2
The University of Chicago Press has just published the second volume of Hayek’s collected works on Business Cycles. This volume includes some previously unpublished manuscripts by Hayek. (Thanks to Madhusudan Raj.)
Government Medical “Insurance”
Instead of solving the initial problem, the intervention creates two or three further problems, which the government feels it must intervene to heal.
Prosperity by Mandate
In light of today’s Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare, this was posted on Facebook: ”Health care for everybody, by making it illegal not to have health care. It’s so simple, why didn’t we think of this before?” — Tim Slagle
This actually reminded me of a comic book quote. In Batman and Son #2 by Grant Morrison, Bruce Wayne says: “...while we’re at it, let’s make wealth compulsory. It would solve so many of the world’s problems if everyone were a millionaire, don’t you think?”
Liberalism and the State
“Liberalism knows no conquests, no annexations; just as it is indifferent towards the state itself, so the problem of the size of the state is unimportant to it. It forces no one against his will into the structure of the state.”
—Ludwig von Mises, Nation, State, and Economy: Contributions to the Politics and History of Our Time
Free Trade: The Litmus Test of Economics
Power lovers hate free choice, so they hate free trade.
Property Rights and the Environment
Sandy Ikeda offers a nice summary of Elinor Ostrom’s views in a recent Freeman column. As Sandy notes, Ostrom is famous for documenting, through carefully done case studies, how individuals work together to solve various kinds of externality problems without recourse to formal (state) institutions.
The Crippling Nature of Minimum-Wage Laws
There is only one way to regard a minimum-wage law: it is compulsory unemployment, period.
