December marks the eighth anniversary of the passing of Ralph Raico, one of Murray Rothbard’s closest friends and the greatest twentieth-century historian of classical liberalism and a great libertarian theorist as well. In this week’s article, I’m going to highlight some of his insights, but it would be easy to fill several articles with more of them.
When the National Park Service was threatened with budget cuts (in D.C. this means budget increases less than the pie-in-the-sky wish list of the bureaucracy in question) the head of the “service,” one George Hartzog, shut down the Washington Monument and Mount Rushmore. Members of congress from every state were bombarded with complaints by vacationing constituents about the shutdowns, so the talk of budget “cuts” ceased.
Could an increase in the demand for money counteract the effect of an increase in the money supply? For example, if there were an increase in the supply of apples by ten and, simultaneously, an increase in the demand for ten apples, this would be completely absorbed. In other words, after individuals have satisfied their demand for ten apples, zero apples would be left.
Since September, Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve System has been cutting rates as if a financial crisis were looming. Just as in 2006, Powell raised the federal funds rate to 5.25 percent in the summer of 2023 and left it there until September of the following year. This past September, he cut rates by 50 percent in September and by 25 more basis points at the following Fed meeting just as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke did starting in September 2007. We all know what happened next.
No ideas are more powerful to the cause of freedom than the truth about economics, which is at the heart of the Misesian and Rothbardian traditions. Our mission for the past forty-two years has been to spread these truths as far and wide as possible. We would be much farther down the road to serfdom without the Mises Institute.
Principles of market economics, particularly those emphasized in Austrian economic thought, are not confined to modern systems but persist across epochs. Ancient narratives, such as Mesopotamian epics, reflect profound insights into human decision-making, resource allocation, and the dynamics of power and exchange. I have become fascinated by deciphering the economic principles embedded within and underlying these ancient texts.
The student loan crisis will end, “not with a bang but with a whimper.” After the presidential election, student debt will remain an embarrassing and thorny issue. Both parties have DNA at this crime scene. Neither party is in control. The prime mover in all of this is the “Nanny Campus” and a captured Education Department. Universities are the engine room of this education industrial-complex.
US coins in circulation get damaged and are eligible to be redeemed through the US Mint Mutilated Coin Redemption Program, begun in 1911. Individuals and businesses can exchange bent, damaged, or partial coins (also known as mutilated coins) for reimbursement when no longer acceptable as legal tender.
