Mr. Westley’s opening remarks in this article call to mind some experiences of mine when I was campaigning for US Congress in 2000, to represent Texas’s 8th district. As the nominee of the Libertarian Party, I quixotically campaigned door-to-door in selected precincts, which taught me quite a bit about the political thought of the people in my district. One of the themes that emerged was that the grassroots Republican supporter was orders of magnitude more radical than their representatives.

This from the Times is not only an example of how interventionism/socialism is doomed to fail, but of the culture of deceit in which RobespiBlaire’s Committee of Public Safety is steeped:

Chris Leithner of Leithner & Co has posted an essay on modern finance and Austrian economics. In the 1970’s a revolution in the academic view of financial econonomics took place.

From Forbes.com: Venzuelan Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega is trying to cut the cord between his country and the International Monetary Fund (much to the chagrin of the latter). CARACAS, Venezuela, April 25 (Reuters) - Venezuela was recovering from an economic recession without the help of the International Monetary Fund, its finance minister said Sunday, adding that it shows that Latin American governments need not follow IMF policy recommendations.

David Brooks’s review of Chernow’s hagiographic biography of Hamilton makes a number of implausible claims, above all the following characterization of the GOP: “Today our liberal/conservative debates tend to pit the advocates of government against the advocates of the market.

Tyler Cowen points to an article on the U.S.’s tentative, so-called “free trade agreement” with Australia:

The proposed deal caps the amount of local [Australian] content at existing levels of 55 per cent on free-to-air commercial television and 25 per cent for commercial radio, and at 10 per cent on pay TV.
If the government reduces these content levels, they cannot be raised again.

From an accounting standpoint, future retirement is considered as properly prefunded if either the government sets aside tax money to make future payments or if an individual himself saves his own money for the same purpose.

In the following example, I try to suggest that even if this accounting requirement is satisfied, and even if the government otherwise follows a sound, non-inflationary monetary policy, the retirement funds themselves may well produce just as much price inflation as if the government had simply inflated the money supply to create the retirement funds.

Correspondent Jason, who reads this blog, writes to ask about Austrian opinion on the issue of local currency. “The websites here and here contain detailed analyses and agendas towards ending the government’s monopoly over printed money, and instead argue for local or regional money backed directly by goods and labor.”