Currency Debasement and Social Collapse
Knowledge of the effects of government interference with market prices makes us comprehend the economic causes of a momentous historical event, the decline of ancient civilization.
Paul vs. Paul: the Video
Check out Ron Paul’s great comeback at 4:04. Krugman accused Paul of wanting to go back a hundred years in monetary policy. Paul pointed out that Krugman’s inflationism is going back over a thousand years to go the ruinous currency debasement of ancient times. (In Human Action, Mises argued that such debasement led to the fall of the Roman Empire.)
Herding Lizards
The lizard part of our brains pushes aside the cognitive areas when we make investment decisions.
Death Panels in Britain?
A majority of British doctors polled call for denying medical care to smokers and the obese.
The True Conception of the Use of Goods
All material goods (Sachgüter) are of use to mankind through the action of the natural powers that reside in them. They are a part of the material world, and for that reason all their working, including their useful working, must bear the character that working generally has in the material world; it is a working of natural powers according to natural laws.
How Should Prices Be Determined?
Our analysis leads us to the conclusion that governments should refrain from trying to fix either maximum or minimum prices for anything.
The Crisis of Interventionism
The interventionist policies as practiced for many decades by all governments of the capitalistic West have brought about all those effects which the economists predicted. There are wars and civil wars, ruthless oppression of the masses by clusters of self-appointed dictators, economic depressions, mass unemployment, capital consumption, famines.
Stopping Business in the Big Apple
Today’s New York Times is a treasure trove of stories of government standing in the way of commerce. Anyone visiting the Big Apple knows hotel lodging costs an arm and a leg. Some enterprising property owners in the city and outer boroughs have stepped in to fill consumer demand and make some money in the process. And with the aid of internet search engines and websites devoted to helping travelers find cheap rooms, demand has been brisk.
Rethinking the American Union
[Rethinking the American Union for the Twenty-First Century • Edited by Donald Livingston • Pelican Publishing Company, 2012 • 272 pages]
The contributors to Donald Livingston’s valuable collection of essays defend two main contentions. Each of these contentions may be held independently of the other, but the first one provides a reason to welcome the truth of the second.
Turning Rich Natural Resources Into Scarcity, Part 2
There is word of more capital destruction in South America. It’s hard to keep up with the Chavzes, but down Argentina way, President Cristina Kirchner announced that her government is seizing a majority stake in oil company YPF SA, owned by Repsol YPF of Spain, the largest oil company in the world.
