That gold was used as money in the past is merely a historical fact. But the fact that gold was a form of private money, and thus not easily manipulated for government schemes, made it a target of countless intellectual and governmental assaults.
Audio Mises Wire
Audio recordings of Mises Wire articles, offering contemporary news and opinion through the lens of Austrian economics and libertarian political economy.
Today, the political system really is in many ways what H.L. Mencken suggested when he described elections as a sort of "advance auction of stolen goods." The only answer lies in reducing the number of stolen goods available.
Price "stability" has never been a feature of a free marketplace. Stability is an obsession of central banks, and the day may come when central bankers intervene to "stabilize" crypto prices. That will be a bad thing.
There is no place in a free society for a government that sues private citizens for defamation. But even between private parties, defamation suits are often used by the powerful to silence others.
New York City subways are in deep financial trouble and the quality of service is in a downward spiral. Yet even talking about privatization is verboten.
Just as Canada had the right to secede from Britain, so too do the provinces and territories have a right to secede from Canada. Today, secession may be Alberta’s remedy against the Canadian regime's abuses.
It’s been said by democracy’s critics that the system is essentially two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. But to its defenders, democracy has been described as an ethical ideal and a way of life—these conceptions nearly implying a metaphysical manifestation
While the recent clamp-down on power from public universities has mainly been in the realm of speech and expression, like almost every other government institution, they have used covid-19 as an opportunity to control students further.
A good definition of the tragedy of the commons is that "resources that are unowned and/or unownable will be plundered to extinction."
Private security tends to provide its services to the highest bidder. And you know that almost always ends up being the regime itself. Corn farmers just can’t cut the same kinds of checks that tax farmers can.
Anyone considering going to the very conservative College of the Ozarks knows what he's getting into. Yet the Biden administration has launched a war on this tiny college in the name of "equality" for transgendered students who have no reason to ever set foot there.
The difficulty Trump encountered in trying to even slightly scale back American military schemes shows just how far Americans are from abandoning the idea that the United States is the indispensable nation entitled to fight wars always and everywhere.
Corporate America—from Facebook to Google to Major League Baseball—got rich by giving the consumers what they want. Now these big firms will use their riches to crush their ideological enemies. That's life in a "mixed economy."
We're beginning to see some early attempts by private firms to provide simple, affordable private security beyond wealthy or corporate clients.
It's too late for American member states to assert real independence from the central government without facing an avalanche of legal, political, and even military opposition. Europeans would be wise to not put themselves in a similar position.
It seems absurd to have to point out that economic cannibalism, even in the face of a virus, cannot produce anything but devastation, but alas, we live in absurd times.
Many have long speculated that there is a correlation between economic prosperity and the length of women's hemlines. But perhaps it's now "mom jeans," with their high waists and ample fit, that indicate the true state of the economy.
Most people understand that it's a good thing when others invest money and capital in your community. But when Canadian investors offered to pour money into France as part of a deal to buy a French company, the regime said no thanks.
Two things should concern us. First, the weakness of the recovery in the middle of the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus seen in decades, and second, the short and diminishing effect of these programs.
The "People over Profits" mantra is once again is being heard in Washington. But this time we're hearing about it from business lobbyists themselves who are now parroting leftwing slogans about "social responsibility."
