Stiglitz in The Times: A Study in Confusion

In the New York Times, Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winner in economics, has an article titled “How to Fix the Global Economy.” Judging from his article, Stiglitz appears to believe that the main problem of the global economy is “global financial imbalances.” By this, he means “America’s enormous trade deficits,” which he states are close to $3 billion a day, and “China’s growing trade surplus of almost $500 million a day.”

The Prophet of the Great Depression

The Causes of the Economic Crisis is a collection of articles on the business cycle, money, and exchange rates by Ludwig von Mises that appeared between 1919 and 1946. Frank Shostak writes that we have here the evidence that the master economist foresaw and warned against the breakdown of the German mark, as well as the market crash of 1929 and the depression that followed. Mises presents his business cycle theory in its most elaborate form, applies it to the prevailing conditions, and discusses the policies that governments undertake that make recessions worse (even before Keynes’s General Theory appeared!). He recommends a path for monetary reform that would eliminate business cycles as we have known them and provide the basis for a sustainable prosperity.

Legalize Drunk Driving

In November 2000, Clinton signed a bill passed by Congress that ordered the states to adopt new, more onerous drunk-driving standards or face a loss of highway funds. That’s right: the old highway extortion trick. Sure enough, states passed new, tighter laws against Driving Under the Influence, responding as expected to the feds’ ransom note.

Film Page: Boom Town

You would think that given how important commerce and entrepreneurship have been in America, there would be many films celebrating the entrepreneur. After several years of working on the film page and receiving hundreds of recommendations for films I had come up with a grand total of one on entrepreneurship: the wonderful Tucker. Thanks to an astute reader, I have now added one more, Boom Town.

The State Intervenes To Prevent Mutually Beneficial Exchange

Yes, I know that headline could cover just about every action of the political class since the advent of the nation-state, but somehow the crack down on internet gambling strikes me as particularly egregious. If this story is right, the government is pretty well demolishing a vast industry and for no good reason. Producers, consumers, and everyone else involved will all have the quality of their lives diminished.

Fighting for the truth

Murray Rothbard was always so gentle in his disagreement with his mentor, Ludwig von Mises.

  1. They disagreed on natural rights;
  2. they disagreed on the necessity of the State; and
  3. they disagreed on foreign policy (based, I suspect, on disagreements #1 and #2)

What might seem at first to be the least significant is (4) their disagreement on the best strategy for educating the public:

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