The utlimate fate of the world monetary system forecast by Henry Hazlitt in the title of his now out-of-print book, From Bretton Woods to World Inflation is becoming increasingly evident, but probably not in the manner that he predicted. Under the gold standard, chronic imbalances could not accumulate because the inflows and outflows of gold would force price adjustments.
I just ran across this, rather old, article. According to the author, “[Michael Jordan] represents the worst of America today: rampant individualism, profit without conscience, and a numbing culture of sanitized corporate homogeneity.“ The charges have been placed, and the verdict is in: Michael Jordan is an evil greedy capitalist pig, who is selfishly apolitical, and refuses to support hair-brained schemes for wealth-redistribution.
I asked the following question on a discussion list: In one of Tom Palmer’s flames of Stephan Kinsella, Palmer accused Hoppe of being an “embarassment to Austrian economists” because he believed that in the unhampered free market, all unemployment would be voluntary (Hoppe’s statement here). Kinsella cited a passage fro
It is often contended that the existence of extreme, or “lifeboat,” situations disproves any theory of absolute property rights, or indeed of any absolute rights of self-ownership whatsoever. It is claimed that since any theory of individual rights seems to break down or works unsatisfactorily in such fortunately rare situations, therefore there can be no concept of inviolable rights at all.
An email called “A Day in the Life of Joe Republican“ is making the rounds via a thousand blogs. It is designed to illustrate how the middle class benefits enormously from big government and is too stupid to realize it. In response, I began the following alternative “Day in the Life”:
Alan Greenspan is about to retire. He has been the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System since August 11, 1987, and his final term will end on January 31, 2006. Until then, Greenspan will have served almost two decades at the helm of the US central bank during which he has left his mark like few before him. With only a little more than a year left as chairman, time now is opportune to review his performance, and at this occasion to make also an assessment of modern central banking.
Don Boudreaux posted an interesting blog entry at Cafe Hayek (forwarded to me by two different e-mailers who wanted a response) with a link to a New York Times article quoting Columbia economist Frank Lichtenberg as stating, “In general, the benefits of new drugs outweigh the costs by a substantial margin.” Call me a little skeptical of this last statement (leaving aside the question of whether Lichtenberg’s econo
