Statist economist Greg Mankiw launches a fresh offensive on freedom with the Pigou Club (to view which, you must register at facebook.com, but Mankiw describes it on his blog). There he and a familiar list of famous (Al Gore) statists and their fellow travellers advocate increased taxes on gasoline to bolster government revenues (now there’s a lofty goal) and alleviate global warming at the same time - a one, two punch as it were.
One of the oldest myths about capitalism is the notion that factories that offer the poor higher wages to lure them off the streets (and away from lives of begging, stealing, prostitution, or worse) or away fom back-breaking farm labor somehow impoverishes and exploits them. They are said to work in “sweatshops” for “subsistence wages.”
In the next issue of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, we feature a symposium on Towards a Pedagogy of Austrian Macroeconomics. The symposium originated from a session of the same title that was held at the Southern Economic Association meeting in November 2005 in Washington, D. C.
Recall that Donald Rumsfeld admitted three years ago in a leaked memo that the war on terror could not be won, and might actually be recruiting more people into the terrorist ranks. He further points out that the government lacks any real means to discern whether it is winning or losing (Mises!). Here is my article from that period.
From the FinTimes Today: Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, writes: “Over the next two days, the European Central Bank will host a conference to discuss the role of money in monetary policymaking. At present, the dominant academic view seems to be that monetary aggregates should have no part in monetary policy decisions.
More than three years ago, George Bush unleashed the dogs of war on Iraq, perhaps hoping that he would take his place among the “great” war presidents. It’s strange how these guys imagine themselves written about in history books in the manner of Washington, Lincoln, and FDR, rather than Truman, Johnson, and Nixon. It’s been more than half a century since war immortalized a president, and yet they keep trying.
I had no idea there was an election taking place in Nicaragua until I saw that headline that the commie throwback Daniel Ortega won the presidency. The U.S. was at war against that country the last time he ruled. It was widely believed that he was nothing but an agent of Soviet expansion in the region, and he and his Sandinista Party had to be stopped.
Remember the “contras” a.ka. the “freedom fighters,” a.k.a., “right-wing death squads” that represented the opposing side in the great Reagan-era mannichean struggle for the future of the region?
