The Illusion of Living Wage Laws
There are plenty of people who can tell you the “benefits” of a living wage. These benefits are very shallow and short-term. A deeper economic and social analysis demonstrates the appalling costs of such regulation.
How I Found the Austrian School
Economics is a little-understood branch of knowledge, and despite its ongoing relevance to our everyday lives, it is still regarded as a subject that must be left to specialists.
Keep Your Self-Righteous Fingers Off My Processed Food
Those who think that there is something wrong with owning more than two pairs of sneakers, or that exquisite fastidiousness about what you put into your mouth equals virtue, need to be teleported back in time.
Gold vs Paper
[July 13, 1953]
Most people take it for granted that the world will never return to the gold standard. The gold standard, they say, is as obsolete as the horse and buggy. The system of government-issued fiat money provides the treasury with the funds required for an open-handed spending policy that benefits everybody; it forces prices and wages up and the rate of interest down and thereby creates prosperity. It is a system that is here to stay.
Rothbard and the Post–High-Tech Meltdown
Many of the survivors of the high-tech meltdown and dot-com bust took advice from the pages of Rothbard’s treatise when they moved operations offshore to India and China.
The Fed’s Dilemma
The Origin of the Dilemma
The Federal Reserve (Fed) and other central banks currently face a dilemma. A strong central-bank balance sheet is essential for the quality of a currency and the stability of a financial system. Unfortunately, the financial crisis has seen substantial changes in the balance sheets of the world’s major central banks.
Money in War-Ravaged Iraq
The villagers turned to a time-tested medium of exchange: livestock. All households had some sheep. Goods were exchanged, debts repaid, and business contracts agreed upon all using sheep as money.
What Keynes Said, and Meant
Keynes is a famously difficult writer to understand. While his ideas have achieved tremendous influence, most people have been exposed to them only by reading macroeconomics textbooks.
Does Mining Matter? LBMA and the Gold Float
When I wrote my article Does Mining Matter?, I would have liked to include some statistics on the total volume of gold trade but I did not know whether they existed or where to find them.
Not Reason
Americans are being burdened by a historic expansion in the federal government. It has effectively nationalized much of banking, bailed out financial and car companies and arrogated the power to override bondholders’ rights, fire corporate officers and control executive compensation. Health care “reform,” will impose new taxes, fees, deficits, regulations, bureaucracies and price controls, and may mandate that individuals buy insurance as well. Massively expensive new environmental policies are next on Congress’ agenda.
