It’s a good start, but the Fed should never cut (or raise) rates at all. It should stop manipulating interest rates altogether. Anything else is just central planning. 

This article is taken from the keynote lecture at the Libertarian Scholars Conference, March 20, 2025, in Auburn, Alabama.

The Origin of the State

What needs to be asked is, How have things gone historically? What is the historical origin of the state?

One of the most popular essays we’ve ever published at the Mises Institute is Murray Rothbard’s “Anatomy of the State.” It’s a great and succinct introduction to the institution that we now call “the state” and explains how the state is a unique type of governance built on coercion and war. Perhaps most importantly, Rothbard explains why the state is not synonymous with society, with the nation, or with any private or voluntary group of individuals.

There really is no reasoning with Trump fanboys when it comes to the reality of his policies. They will spin anything and everything to portray Trump‘s blatant anti-freedom and anti-market policies as secret crypto-libertarianism. It’s all 1000-D chess, you see. 

After the tongue lashing President Zelensky received in the Oval Office by President Trump and JD Vance, European and American establishment leaders were infuriated to say the least. But the most surprising thing that came out of the meeting was the reaction of European leaders; they have decided to take action without the approval of the American president.

Fresh off her 2018 upset New York Democratic congressional primary win, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (better known as AOC) and Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey announced they were launching an ambitious legislative plan called the Green New Deal. While people who had a grounding in economic thought found this new initiative to be naïve at best and destructive at worst, nonetheless it has energized American progressives and other environmental true believers.

The first article in Jeffrey Tucker’s Bourbon for Breakfast is “The Bureaucrat in Your Shower” from 2006. Although I worked side-by-side with Jeffrey at the Mises Institute, I had no idea American showers had become, in President Trump’s terms, “weak” until a glorious cascade of water came from a shower head in Salamanca, Spain.

Those who hoped the second Trump administration would reject big spending, war, and restrictions on liberty continue to be disappointed. A new disappointment came when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced her department would in May begin enforcing the REAL ID law.

Parents are rightly concerned about what is happening in our “public” schools. Crazed “educators” are encouraging impressionable children to “transition” to another sex, as if such a thing was possible. Students are taught that sexual promiscuity is a good thing. They are brainwashed to accept socialist attacks on our free enterprise system.