Mises on monarchy and democracy
Like most Mises.org readers, I’ve enjoyed continuing enlightenment from the changing quotations by Mises on the homepage and blog. I was struck by this one that just popped up among the 1,400:
In Defense of Bribery
The Wall Street Journal of August 5 reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing a criminal investigation of the Mercedes unit of German car manufacturer DaimlerChrysler, suspected of having paid bribes in many countries, especially in Latin America and Africa. As a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, DaimlerChrysler is subject to the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids paying bribes to foreign officials (bureaucrats or politicians). The Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating.
The Economics of Inflation
I recently learned that Constantino Bresciani-Turoni’s classic work on the Weimar inflation, The Economics of Inflation, is on-line. Jim Puplava, an Austrian-financial economist and investment analyst has done a series of internet radio commentaries on this work: part 1, part 2, part 3.
Anatomia del estado
Murray Rothbard’s Anatomy of the State is in Spanish.
GATT/WTO: A Big Nothing?
This article in the Economist (subscription required) reports on three different analyses of GATT and its successor, the World Trade Organization, and what their effects may have been on world trade, necessarily a counterfactual analysis. As Austrians might expect, the upshot of the three taken together is . . . not as much as many think, nor as good.
The Fallacy of the “Core” Rate of Inflation
See my LRC article on why it makes no sense at all to care about “core” consumer price indicies except as a way to cover up the inflation problem.
More growth on the Austrian Economics Forum
Today we broke 250 members and 2000 posts!!! Join the Austrian Economics Forum the premier internet community for discussion, debate, investigation and inquiry of the Austrian School of Economics.
A Visit to Karl Marx’s Apartment
Lew Rockwell recently mentioned Karl Marx. From the Portable Karl Marx, here is a Prussian police agent’s report on a visit to Marx’s apartment in London:
In his private life he is a highly disorderly, cynical human being and a bad manager. He lives the life of a gypsy, of an intellectual Bohemian; washing, combing and changing his linen are things he does rarely, he likes to get drunk. He is often idle for days on end, but when he has work to do, he will work day and night with tireless endurance.
Other People’s Money
I always knew that if the Republicans were ever to become the majority party, they would do it by mimicking the Democrats. To support this point, this morning’s Washington Post includes a graphic showing the big winners (in terms of wealth transfers) from the recently-passed transportation bill. These include:
