The Ambition of Rothbard’s Treatise

Rothbard’s primary mission in writing his treatise was to purge modern economic science of its alien positivist and mathematical-formalist elements and to reconstruct it along consistently causal-realist lines. The death knell is now tolling for the mathematical and positivist pretenders to the mainstream of economics. The time is ripe for Austrians to recover their rightful position as the true representatives of the central tendency of modern economic theory.

Abolish the Expatriation Tax

In the past, the government was forced to show a modicum of restraint with respect to levying taxes for fear that citizens would simply leave the country and move to a more favorable location. In fact, the threat of the citizenry emigrating en masse is arguably one of the most important checks on government power. The American Jobs Creation Act, passed by a Republican House, Senate, and president, effectively removed this fear.

Don’t Bail Out Eastern Europe

There’s a new subprime crisis in the news. Unlike the US original, however, which has sparked the worldwide recession, this one doesn’t involve only falling home prices but also falling economies. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe, after years of high growth fueled by investment from Western Europe, are now heading towards a recession.

Management Theory Is Not to Blame

Some commentators think that business schools’ focus on shareholder wealth maximization, performance-based pay, and the virtue of self-interest have led banks, corporations, and governments astray. We think, however, that management theory has much to offer policymakers, practitioners, and analysts seeking to understand the current crisis.

David Brooks and Neoconservatives Hate Capitalism

If one does not read enough economic illiteracy from Paul Krugman’s Monday column in the New York Times, there always is David Brook’s Tuesday column, which presents the neo-con (emphasis on “con”) view of the world. One must remember that the editorial writers at the Times actually believe that Brooks is a free-market guy.

Today, Brooks demonstrates his Great Knowledge of Capitalism in the following paragraph:

A Free and Prosperous Commonwealth

In the Wall Street Journal of March 5, 2009, Daniel Henninger asks “Has Obama Buried Reagan?” While much of the current debate has focused around stimulus and the current crisis, Henninger argues that the correct response to the misguided stimulus and the budget proposal that increases (estimates are based on a very rosy forecast of economic growth) the measured size of the federal government relative to GDP from 20% in 2007 to 27.7% for fiscal 2009 to 24.1% for 2010, and then remaining higher than 22

Dress Like the Great Depression

We will be highly fortunate if the second Great Depression turns out to be as stylish as the first, in which even the bums sleeping in the park benches looked better than the average workers and even CEOs today. The idea behind shabby vogue was to give the impression that you don’t really care what others think. Now all of this has come into question.

The Three Little Pigs and the Federal Reserve Crisis

In their later years, they bought a yacht and sailed the seven seas. The three little pigs each had a bag of gold coins to spend at the various ports of call. The good life. No wolves, no Federal Reserve, no worries. Or so they thought

One dark and stormy night, they were shipwrecked on a deserted tropical island. They spluttered ashore each with their coin purses clutched greedily

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