Outlawing Jobs: The Minimum Wage
In truth, there is only one way to regard a minimum wage law: it is compulsory unemployment, period.
Happy Birthday, Israel Kirzner
The eminent Austrian economist Israel M. Kirzner turns 83 today. Last week I was privileged to participate in an event honoring Kirzner with the Fund for the Study of Spontaneous Order Lifetime Achievement Award. Here is a video of Kirzner’s acceptance speech. The other videos should be available shortly.
On the Resource Cost of Fiat Money
Milton Friedman and all monetarists after him claimed that the Gold Standard had a fatal flow. The Gold Standard required that gold be dug up, refined and then made into coins or stored away in vaults to back paper money in circulation. Therefore this gold was expensive and could not be used in jewelry, artwork, industry, etc. The fiat money system does away with most of this cost.
Russian Alchemy: Turning Oil into Gold
It would seem that Vladimir Putin has learned the art of alchemy as he has turned some Russian oil into Russian gold. According to a Bloomberg report:
America’s Great Depression: Fifty and Relevant
AGD at 50 and the Quote for the Week
Read About the University of Texas Mises Circle
...and its recent session with Austrian economist and past Mises Summer Fellow, Per Bylund, on the economy of Sweden.
Recreating the Asset Bubble: The Fed’s Plan for Economic Recovery
While Keynesians continue to sing that lame old song about insufficient aggregate demand stimulus and the horrors of austerity and “market” monetarists prattle on about deficient growth in nominal GDP, the signs of an incipient asset bubble become more evident every day.
The Flat Tax Versus the Flat, Flat Tax
Although I am not a fan of the flat tax, this short video is well worth viewing. The look on President Obama’s face is priceless as pediatric neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson criticizes the punitive thrust of progressive income taxation at the National Prayer Breakfast.
Recessions: The Don’t Do List
Listening to a new report on the just-released GDP numbers while reading Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression (AGD) made me realize how relevant and important this work is relative to today’s poorly performing economy. The book briefly summarizes Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT) and applies the theory to the period of the Great Depression from 1929–1933. The book is especially relevant in that it provides policy guidance for dealing with an economic crisis, based on ABCT and historical evidence.
The Myth of Fed Independence
The standard reply of the Fed and its partisans is that any such measures, however marginal, would encroach on the Fed’s “independence from politics,”
