We just received news that John David Fernandez, a student at Columbia and major supporter of the Austrian School, has died. He reviewed the Mises University after last summer’s event. He is pictured below, on the left in the wheelchair. Deepest condolences to the family, and may he rest in peace.
Jason Zweig writes in his “The Intelligent Investor” column in today’s Wall Street Journal. Investors surveyed believe the boom has resumed and they expect 13.7% annual average returns over the next decade.
Zweig does not mention government defined-benefit pension plans that typically assume 8% annual returns and are now according to Orin Kramer $2 trillion short.
“To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.”
– Samuel Beckett
“The task of art today is to bring chaos into order.”
– Theodor Adorno
[Chapter 1 of Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture]
[This article is excerpted from Let’s Abolish Government.]
The free administration of justice was a principle of the common law, and it must necessarily be a part of every system of government which is not designed to be an engine in the hands of the rich for the oppression of the poor.
In large part because of my frequent email exchanges with Hummel, I now realize that I was being naïve.
As I note in my article “Radical Patent Reform Is Not on the Way,” Mises Daily (Oct. 1, 2009), there is a growing clamor for reform of patent (and copyright) law, due to the increasingly obvious injustices resulting from these intellectual property (IP) laws. However, the various recent proposals for reform merely tinker with details and leave the essential features of the patent system intact. Patent scope, terms, and penalties would still be essentially the same.
