Ten books to read, for free
Someone writes to ask what ten free book on Mises.org are essential for understanding the Austrian position. Not a problem:
The Frightful Face of Stimulus
Among businesspeople, bankers, and investors, there is a growing fear that the economy is headed towards recession or already in one. But that alone is not the source of worry. After all, an economy if left alone to function in freedom can recover. The real problem has to do with the political response. There is every indication that no matter who comes to be in charge in November, we face a future of massive spending, inflating, and regulating.
And here is the real danger. One only needs to look at such preposterous measures as the “stimulus package” that Congress passed to much fanfare. Dumping money into consumers’ hands, drawn from wherever they can get it, is the only means these guys can dream up to shore up prosperity. That only proves that they don’t know what brings about prosperity in the first place, which is not Congress but free enterprise.
John T. Flynn and the Myth of FDR
Albert Jay Nock, distinguished man of letters and philosophical anarchist, was an inspiration to thinkers as diverse as Murray Rothbard and Robert Nisbet, Frank Chodorov and Russell Kirk. A personal friend of the father of William F. Buckley, Jr., he was a kind of guru to the young Buckley as well.
Generalissimo Washington: How He Crushed the Spirit of Liberty
Washington Transforms the Army
In June of 1775, George Washington was appointed Major General and elected by Congress to be commander in chief of the American revolutionary forces. Although he took up his tasks energetically, Washington accomplished nothing militarily for the remainder of the year and more, nor did he try. His only campaign in 1775 was internal rather than external; it was directed against the American army as he found it, and was designed to extirpate the spirit of liberty pervading this unusually individualistic and democratic army of militiamen.
Depression risk might force U.S. to buy assets
As the credit bubble unravels, will the bad debts be written off, resulting in a debt-deflation spiral? Or will central banks do everything within their power, including the use of “unconventional methods” to prevent asset prices from falling? I suggest the latter outcome. The benefits to a deflation are deferred and dispersed, and require a considerable amount of pain first; while the benefits of bailing out financial institutions are immediate and concentrated. With 70% of Americans owning homes, public opinion generally favors rising, or at least not-falling home prices.
Don’t Save Your (Patented) Seed
As reported on the Patent Baristas blog: “To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Well, There You Go Again!“ The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit again affirmed that, while the practice of savings seeds after a harvest to plant the next season is as old as farming itself, you can’t save patented seeds.”
Is any comment really needed?
And Now, It’s Securitization!
The media have made us all aware of how rapacious lenders and (in a few cases) mendacious borrowers foisted the subprime mortgage mess (SMM) on us. Here and there may have come a whisper about chronically forcibly depressed interest rates and profligate creation of money by the Fed, and never, ever will the elephant in the living room of affirmative-action lending gain any traction (just not nice, you know).
But from the University of Chicago via The Economist now comes yet another demon: securitization, and with “hard proof,” no less.
The Valentine Story of Ludwig and Margit von Mises
He talked to her after dinner, and they went to a dance club. Apparently Mises was a poor dancer -- at least by Margit’s standards -- and so they spent most of the night talking. Actually she did most of the talking and he listened attentively. Margit was an attractive woman of five-foot-four, with brown hair and grey-blue eyes. Now, as they talked, he discovered she was also a witty and warm person. He must have fallen in love with her that evening. The next day, he sent her red roses and asked her out for dinner.Garet Garrett: Far Forward of the Trenches
Joseph Sobran discovered these Garet Garrett essays “one night, long ago, at the office of National Review, where I then worked.” As the flagship of modern conservatism, National Review supported the Cold War and the hot war then raging in Vietnam.
“Two questions occurred to me,” Sobran writes. “One: ‘Why haven’t I heard of this man before?’ Two: ‘If he’s right, what am I doing here?”
Downward Dollar Delivers Blow to Outsourcing
The slowdown of the American economy and the ensuing devaluation of the US dollar deliver gloomy headlines as timely as weather forecasts. The weakening currency may excite entrepreneurs anticipating increased exports. As well, it might have a stimulating effect for American professionals who are paid in return for our services.
However, the total effect is negative insofar as it will curb the trend toward the expansion of the international division of labor. Less outsourcing means higher labor costs for American business, which means less productivity overall.
