Given France’s current attitude toward free trade, some might find it surprising that the nation was home to an influential group of pro-free trade political economists from the early 18th to early 19th centuries.

The claim by libertarians that to taxation is equivalent to ensalvement strikes many people as being extreme and fanatical. However, I hope to show that this claim is entirely correct by a rather brief argument that I hope clarifies the situation.

Gary North has a very nice piece today on LRC on Ed Opitz. I read his book in college, and it had an impact. The one time I met him was about 15 years ago on a weekend when I was doing some research at FEE. He practiced his French horn for several hours in the office, which is enormously charming because most brass players never pick up their horns again after losing their chops at a young age. He was determined to keep playing, and he was pretty darn good, especially considering that this is the hardest of all brass instruments.

I have previously accused supply-siders (See for example here and here ) of having a double standard over their inflation indicators, such as gold and commodity price indexes, choosing to ignore them when they -as they do now- show significant inflation.

Growing up as a child in World War II, I saw countless movies in which a German soldier in uniform, or a Gestapo agent in plain clothes, would utter the spine-chilling words “Papiere, Bitte” (”Papers, Please”). What made those words spine chilling was the fact that whoever they were uttered to was in imminent danger of arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution. This was almost certain to be the fate of any hapless soul who was unfortunate enough not to have his “Papiere” or whose “Papiere” did not satisfy the German who examined them.

According to the latest Government report the personal savings rate has plunged to negative 0.7% in December from negative 0.2% in November. This was the seventh consecutive negative savings rate. Note that the average of the savings rate since 1959 stood at 7.2%.

“Dad Dean” considers university tenure systems at insidehighered.com.

Alfred G. Cuzán contributed “Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?“ (pdf) to the Summer 1979 issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, an article which Roderick Long describes as “invaluable”, (also see Stephan Kinsella). This short article, only 7 pages of text, is one of those little pieces of conceptual dynamite that blows apart the way you’ve seen the world.

A classic, and still under-appreciated. Murray Rothbard writes: