Argentina’s Javier Milei is racking up some solid wins, with the fiscal basket case seeing its first monthly budget surplus in 12 years.

Apparently, it took Milei just nine and a half weeks to balance a budget that was projected at 5% of GDP under the previous government. In US terms, he turned a 1.2 trillion-dollar annual deficit into a 400 billion surplus. In 9 and a half weeks.

Earlier this month, The New York Post reported that the mayor of New York is giving away pre-paid cash cards—each carrying “up to $10,000“— to foreign nationals in New York. Most of these foreign nationals—i.e., “illegal immigrants”—have arrived in New York with no invitation, no employment prospects, and no plan for housing. But most of them plan on staying. And why shouldn’t they?

The Failure of American Conservatism and the Road Not Taken
By Claes G. Ryn
Republic Book Publishers, 2023; 468 pp.

Welcome to the first issue of The Misesian.

We’ve decided to rename The Austrian magazine The Misesian to emphasize how Ludwig von Mises remains at the center of everything that that is today called the Austrian School of economics.

The Misesian (TM): The economics behind gift giving and charity have long been a neglected topic among researchers and economists. What prompted you to launch your own investigation into the topic?

Demand Side economists, like Paul Krugman, claim that officials can use changes in the inflation rate and in public debt to “manage the economy”. Higher inflation rates supposedly act as a stimulus to increase GDP, and to lower the unemployment rate. How is this supposed to work? In the original form of this argument workers are fooled by inflation. That is, workers don’t perceive the effect that inflation has on the purchasing power of their wages. Employers do perceive cheaper real wages, so they pick up some bargains by hiring some additional workers.

Five days before the last Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, Tho Bishop wrote about how the Fed and other agencies are preparing for a crisis without telling everyone they are preparing for a crisis.

In two columns, David Gordon reviewed my forthcoming book, Socialism: A Logical Introduction, and the Power & Market has very kindly given me the opportunity to reply.

Reports on the death of the present cycle of politically motivated monetary easing, in the words of Mark Twain, grossly exaggerated. Contemporary market analyses are full of how the Fed and ECB are dialing back on previous hints of Spring 2024 rate cuts. In tune with this, commentators are lauding the central banks, especially the Fed, for a show of political independence as elections approach.

The bigger picture though suggests otherwise. In the economic aftermath of the pandemic, monetary policy has again been blatantly political.