In an article published last week, I reviewed, in not altogether favorable terms, Stefan Molyneux’s book Universally Preferable Behavior.

“A social system based on this natural position regarding the assignment of property rights is, and will from now on be called, pure capitalist.  And since its ideas can be discerned as the dominating ideas of private law, i.e., of the norms regulating relations between private persons, it might also be termed a pure private law system....This system is based on the idea that to be non-aggressive, claims to property must be backed by the “objective” fact of an act of original appropriation, of previous ownership, or by a mutually beneficial

An amusing thing about Friedmanite positivism is its remarkable naïveté about how empirical social science research is actually done. Quantitative empirical analysis in practice is nothing at all like the model described in Friedman (1953). Results are rarely conclusive. Disagreement (and fighting) is widespread. Some theories are so widely believed that no amount of empirical evidence will dislodge them.

Ernest Borgnine, who died yesterday, said this in an interview in 1998 (h/t Justin Ptak):

Estonia is home to the latest Mises Institute (mises.ee).

From Paul Vahur, executive director, of Mises Institute Estonia:

We are glad to announce about the creation of Mises Institute Estonia (in Estonian: Misese Instituut). The founders were 10 members of Mises Circle Tallinn which was created in 2009. Mises Institute Estonia is politically independent and funded only by private donations.

“The theory involves a conceptual conflation of democracy and liberty (freedom) that can only be called scandalous, especially coming from self-proclaimed libertarians.  The foundation and cornerstone of liberty is the institution of private property; and private—exclusive—property is logically incompatible with democracy—majority rule.  Democracy has nothing to do with freedom.  Democracy is a soft variant of communism....the doctrine of democratic peace, which goes back to the days of Woodrow Wilson and World War I, has been revived in recent years b

[This is a revised version of written testimony submitted to the 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.]

Chairman Paul and members of the subcommittee, I am deeply honored to appear before you to testify on the topic of fractional-reserve banking. Thank you for your invitation and attention.

The ECB has once again come to the rescue by cutting interest rates in order to forestall a collapse of the European economy. Also, in a “surprise” move, the Chinese central bank cut interest rates in response to a continuing slow down in economic activity.