Dead Politicians, Doggies, and the Glories of Voluntary Preservation
Watching the late-night news yesterday revealed one terribly funny story.
The Rule of Law without the State
Were there such a category, Somalia would hold a place in Guinness World Records as the country with the longest absence of a functioning central government. When the Somalis dismantled their government in 1991 and returned to their precolonial political status, the expectation was that chaos would result — and that, of course, would be the politically correct thing to expect.
In fact, Somalia’s pastoral economy is now stronger than that of either neighboring Kenya or Ethiopia. It is the largest exporter of livestock of any East African country. Telecommunications have burgeoned in Somalia; a call from a mobile phone is cheaper in Somalia than anywhere else in Africa. A small number of international investors are finding that the level of security of property and contract in Somalia warrants doing business there.
Bove: The Fed is Bailing Out Countrywide
Punk, Ziegel analyst Richard X. Bove argues here that recent Fed policies and pronouncement amount to a bailout of Countrywide Financial. If so, then Bernanke’s Fed is similar to Greenspan’s in that the latter also directed Fed policy to help Long Term Capital Management.
Two More Original Works by Mises in German
Theorie des geldes und der Umlaufsmittel (first edition of Theory of Money and Credit [Fiduciary Media]), 1912. Die Gemeinwirtschaft (2nd edition of Socialism), 1932.
Insufferable anti-capitalist musical blasted by NYT
“The concept of this time-traveling musical satire — the Wal-Martization of the world — seems tired on arrival,” says this review of Walmartopia.
The Truth About Labor Day
Labor Day is supposed to honor all American workers. And every year, union Labor Day rhetoric does just that. Unfortunately, it then makes the false leap to the claim that unions advance the interests of all American working men and women, not just their members. In fact, despite unions’ pro-worker rhetoric, the effect of most union activities and union-backed policies is to harm most American workers.Unions succeed by preventing competition from other workers who are willing to do the same work for less.
Breaking Bad Habits A Century Later
Paging through The Last Knight, Guido Hülsmann summarizes the dismal conditions, the zeitgeist of the tertiary educational system Mises endured at the University of Vienna:
A World Map of The Last Knight
Here is Google’s world map of places mentioned in The Last Knight of Liberalism. Scroll down. Here is a shrunken version: 
The Last Knight: Live Bloggers
I’m pleased to announce that two scholars will be live blogging the new bio of Mises: Wladimir Kraus, a PhD student in economics in Germany, and Greg Ransom of the Hayek Center. Both will be reading the book chapter by chapter and blogging their impression here as they go. Both bloggers are interesting cases because neither can be considered orthodox Misesians. Kraus tends toward an objectivist position with more sympathy for the classical school than is usually found among the Rothbard branch of the Misesian school, while Ransom is a Hayekian of the old school.
The Fed: Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?
James Hamilton (an econ professor at UCSD) recently discussed the Taylor Rule and the housing boom. The money quote is at the very end:
