Spitzer: a Victim of Police State Tactics

In this old blog post, I jokingly suggested that Eliot Spitzer be threatened with indictment in order to force him to resign due to his serial abuses of power. Well, this is ultimately what it took. And despite the irony that this is the same tactic Spitzer used on others (and as much as I think Spitzer got what he deserved), Spitzer’s demise is just another example of prosecutorial abuse. Several libertartians have made this observation on the LRC site.

The Money Factory

So I’m sitting here in the Massey Library at the Mises Institute watching on the closed circuit TV the lectures by Joe Salerno and others in the Schlarbaum Seminar Room. Salerno mentioned that a $100 bill cost about 2 cents to print. Gil Guillory and I got curious about this and so I googled it. It seems Joe was in the ballpark, but during the search I ended up stumbling upon the site for the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Its website is, I kid you not, www.MoneyFactory.gov. I suspect they did this with a complete lack of irony.

How is Efficiency Obtained?

Economic policy is nowadays always measured against the standard of economic efficiency, that is, static efficiency. A concrete economic policy, writes Fernando Herrera-Gonzalez, is deemed to be good if it improves the static efficiency of the market. The ideal economic policy should be the one able to drive the market to the nirvana of perfect competition, in which static efficiency is maximized, as is social welfare. The problem is not so much that the static economic model does not reflect the reality.

What are you investing in?

This is an open thread to discuss the question I (and others) continually receive many queries about. What does your portfolio look like? What is the long-term strategy? What are you diversifying into? What are you shorting? What are you bullish about? What economic analysis tools or methodologies do you use? Do you try to take advantage of cycles/booms/busts? Note: do not construe this as an official stance by the Mises Institute to buy or sell any securities.

Bastiat-Proudhon Debate Online

Over the course of several months from late 1849 through early 1850, French classical liberal economist Frédéric Bastiat and French anarcho-socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon conducted a lengthy debate on the nature and legitimacy of interest. In 1879, an English translation (by American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker) appeared – but incomplete, and in an obscure venue.
Subscribe to