[Progressive Myths. By Michael Huemer. Self-published, 2024]

By way of executive order, President Trump aims to implement a Sovereign Wealth Fund in the United States. A 90-day deadline has been set for the official plan, requiring various officials and departments to quickly collaborate on its development. But what are some of the implications? What could this look like?

The UK economy has continued to flatline for the entire second half of 2024. Nothing seems to happen in the UK anymore. There seems to be an atmosphere of decline. House prices are becoming absurd, but no houses can be constructed. Businesses on the high street are closing, but new ones cannot replace them. The examples go on and on, creating a quite grim mood amongst society.

Modern Monetary Theory posits that the way that we think about the economy is largely incorrect, that money is merely a legal and social tool—a fiat-token that can be wielded (along with taxation) in order to rearrange and utilize scarce resources in an economy to their full potential.

In 1992, Murray Rothbard outlined a strategy for confronting the American regime that relied on transforming critiques of state intervention into a full front culture war. In his words, the intellectual battle “must necessarily be a strategy of boldness and confrontation, of dynamism and excitement, a strategy, in short, of rousing the masses from their slumber and exposing the arrogant elites that are ruling them, controlling them, taxing them, and ripping them off.”

As immigration levels have grown in many Western countries, concerns over the politically destabilizing effects of large-scale migration have prompted a continuing debate over citizenship. As we’ve noted here at mises.org, many European states have consequently moved toward greater restrictions on citizenship. Other states, such as the United States and Canada, have yet to embrace any new limitations on naturalization laws.

The federal Chapter 9 bankruptcy declaration by the Puerto Rican (PR) government in May 2017 was the first time a US sovereign territory declared insolvency with $72 billion of debt. PR, over time, borrowed money for several government bond issues, bond payments were not timely made, ongoing inappropriate spending of taxpayer dollars, and not investing in upkeep of government-owned electricity and public water supply infrastructure.

At the annual Property and Freedom conference in September 2024, Hans-Hermann Hoppe criticized Argentinian President Javier Milei. Hoppe’s critique is, in summary, that Milei compromised on principle in pursuing his goals, and that he is more like a Reagan or Thatcher than a radical libertarian. Milei responded in an interview in December, but surprisingly, he only engaged one of Hoppe’s points at any length.

Today in American politics, even if you are solely interested in economic and foreign policy issues, it would still require Herculean luck not to come across the term “woke.” Woke has become the main weapon of the cultural war on both sides. It could be used to praise someone or to denounce them. A politician could be labelled “woke” by both supporters and detractors. But what does this term really mean?