[This article is excerpted from chapter 20 of Human Action: The Scholar’s Edition and is read by Jeff Riggenbach.]
The theory of the cyclical fluctuations of business as elaborated by the British Currency School was in two respects unsatisfactory.
[This article is excerpted from chapter 20 of Human Action: The Scholar’s Edition.]
In dealing with the consequences of credit expansion we assumed that the total amount of additional fiduciary media enters the market system via the loan market as advances to business. All that has been predicated with regard to the effects of credit expansion refers to this condition.
The seeming prosperity and glittering power of Spain in the 16th century proved a sham and an illusion in the long run. For it was fuelled almost completely by the influx of silver and gold from the Spanish colonies in the New World. In the short run, the influx of bullion provided a means by which the Spanish could purchase and enjoy the products of the rest of Europe and Asia; but in the long run, price inflation wiped out this temporary advantage.
[This article is excerpted from chapter 20 of Human Action: The Scholar’s Edition and is read by Jeff Riggenbach.]
[The Politics of Hunger: Allied Blockade of Germany, 1915-1919 • By C. Paul Vincent • Ohio University Press (1985) • 185 pages. This review was first published in the Review of Austrian Economics 3, no. 1.]
The recent case of the lost next-generation iPhone prototype can help illustrate the absurdity of intellectual property rights. The basic idea of IP is that information can be owned–patterns, recipes, methods, designs, and so on. Even Rothbard, in The Ethics of Liberty, makes this assumption in arguing for a type of contractual copyright:
By all indications the U.S. has more than the required number of houses in stock. According to data from the National Association of Realtors, at the end of March there were 3.6 million homes for sale. The average inventory of “for sale” homes is 2.7 million, so the excess supply is 900,000 units based on historical averages. NewObservations.net estimates the current supply to be 8.6 months worth, while the 10-year average has been 5.8 months.
