In this morning’s Mises Wire article, I mentioned that the true nature of the ruling class tends to be revealed in times of emergency. Moreover, it is during declared “emergencies” that it becomes clear that ordinary constitutional limits on state powers—such as the much touted “balance of powers” tend to do little to actually restrain regime power. 

On Monday, Aurora, Colorado paramedic Peter Cichuniec was sentenced to five years in prison (for criminally negligent homicide) for his part in the killing of Elijah McClain. 

McClain was an Aurora resident who had been walking home on the night of August 24, 2019. After police received a call about an unarmed person who looked “sketchy,” police stopped and confronted McClain. 

This month marks the fourth anniversary of one of the most disastrous assaults on human rights in American history.

In an article in the New York Times on March 27, 2018, Paul Krugman argues that economists who believe increases in money supply cause inflation are wrong. According to Krugman, the key factor that sets inflation in motion is unemployment. While a decline in the unemployment rate is associated with an increase in the rate of inflation, an upsurge in the unemployment rate is associated with a decline in the rate of inflation.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York (MTA) has announced a set of tolls for vehicles on streets south of Central Park.

Further evidence of the crash in office property values comes from news that the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) with $436.9 billion in capital sold its 29% stake in Manhattan’s 360 Park Avenue South for $1 to its partner Boston Properties Inc., which agreed to assume CPPIC’s share of the property’s debt.

In these times of war in the Middle East, I often think of my late friend, the great and brilliant Joe Sobran.  If Joe could be with us today, it’s clear what he would be saying. Why does the US support Israel uncritically? How is doing so in our national interest? What about the rights of Palestinians to their land?

How do we know he would say these things? Because this is exactly what he did said in 2002.

According to the Federal Reserve, credit card delinquencies increased by 50 percent in 2023, while consumer debt grew to 17.5 trillion dollars. A recent survey by Clever Real Estate found that three in five Americans have credit card debt and that 23 percent of Americans increase their credit card debt every month. The survey also found that 48 percent of Americans (including 59 percent of millennials) use credit cards for essential living expenses.

Stephen Anderson, in his Mises Wire essays of February 1 (“Are Bankruptcies of Some US States in the Future?”) and February 23 (“US States Have a Long History of Defaulting”), worries that some US states may be on the precipice of bankruptcy.

Investor and author Doug Casey recently wrote that most economists “are political apologists masquerading as economists.” He says they are like witch doctors pretending to be neurosurgeons. They “prescribe the way they would like the world to work and tailor theories to help politicians demonstrate the virtue and necessity of their quest for more power.” The discipline of economics, says Casey, “has been turned into the handmaiden of government in order to give scientific justification for things the government wants to do.”