Paul Krugman names the enemy that shut out the lights: deregulation. Under the old system, he says, it was easy to keep the system going and upgraded because power companies “would catch the flak if something went wrong” (funny how that incentive didn’t work in the Soviet Union). But deregulation took away the incentive to keep the system upgraded. How? Why?

• So much for the fashionistas’ new inflation - we shall have to make do with the old one (Christopher Fildes, Telegraph): “Blink and you miss it. How scared we were all meant to be of deflation. Central bankers pledged themselves to beat it back. The fashionistas at the Financial Times told us that deflation was the new inflation.

Photos of the Rothbard gravesite in Orange, Virginia, by James S. Gricher.

Posted by Mises.org News

For those interested in how the Internet is changing traditional ways of doing commerce, here’s an interesting article on publishing books electronically, “Electronic Book Experiments Continue”:

“We’re used to authors writing lengthy books for publishers, who then rely on bookstores for sales, but in the electronic book publishing world, roles are different and assumptions change.

Fears of deflation, prominent a month or two ago, are now rapidly subsiding, and soon may disappear entirely. Nevertheless, deflation is still a subject about which it is important to have a correct understanding.

We invent great ideas, and the Japanese—Honda in particular—adopt them and put them to work.

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times reports that Mortgage Markets are Out of Control.  The mortgage-backed securities market is the place where bundles of home mortgages packaged into debt securities are traded.  The MBS market is now the largest debt market in the world, having eclipsed the US Treasury market.  The two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the largest issuers of MBS, are roiling the US Treasury market as they buy and sell enormous qua

• America Fights for the Freedom to Read (James Bovard, Baltimore Sun)
• IMF Ignores Cause of Crises (Grant Null [Mises U grad], Financial Times)
• A Noble Science: Economics is Not Dismal (Dwight Lee, Claremont Institute)

A reader responding to my most recent article on Mises.org writes: 

What is the best means for distater planning: government or market? As this story says, and many local reports confirm, Meijer grocery stores in the Midwest stayed open during the power failure, providing gas, water, batteries, and all the rest, while keeping all cash registers open for 24 hours and serving all comers. They did this by use of their own private generators. Sam’s also remained open.