Recent Podcast Episodes

Original article: https://mises.org/power-m

While we often speak of measurements of inflation (such as "inflation went up by three percent"), in reality, one cannot accurately measure it, given official measurements consist of arbitrary weighted averages. It is better to see inflation as qualitative, not quantitative.

As the Texas floodwaters receded, politicians like Chuck Schumer twisted facts about the tragedy to score a political win. Examining what went wrong to prevent such tragedies from happening again is the right thing to do. But that involves looking at the actual facts.

Now is the time to admit that easy-money policy and corporate bailouts—imposed in the name of increasing homeownership—has only made housing more unaffordable.

President Trump cracked down on the latest version of the LA riots by calling in the National Guard. However, much of the violence that accompanied those riots came courtesy of government actors.

Don‘t kid ourselves. The federal government is hurtling toward disaster with its destructive activities underwritten by the Federal Reserve System. It‘s best that we know how to protect ourselves from the consequences.

Twentieth and twenty-first century monetary history shows us how our government, step-by-step, removed the monetary gold standard and introduced their fiat paper currency dollar to fund their increasing political power.

A central belief of collectivists is that people think collectively, too. Whether one is a member of a class, religious group, or ethnic group, collectivism holds that each group has distinct interests that determine how individuals in the group think. Mises would have disagreed.

Bob Murphy and David Howden explore essays honoring Joe Salerno, revealing how a new generation of Austrian economists is shaping the future of economic thought.

Although President Trump has claimed that tariffs will ultimately raise our standard of living, they really are taxes on consumers. Furthermore, tariffs also deny consumers the choices they want to make.

Monetarists have long believed that the Fed should pursue policies of low inflation in order to counter the effects of lower prices through enhanced productivity. Thus, they reason, overall prices will remain stable. Such policies actually promote economic instability.

Original article: https://mises.org/power-market/israels-nuc

Mixed martial arts is a brutal, imperfect, occasionally ugly sport. But it’s also one of the most honest epistemic systems we have when dealing with self-defense, and each individual has the right to defend himself against aggressors.

Has anyone besides Murray Rothbard made a compelling case for state-free anarchy? In this week‘s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon extols Libertarian Anarchy by Gerard Casey, which he says provides excellent arguments for doing away with the state.

Before Bitcoin, there was Hayek. In the 1970s, he warned that state-controlled money leads to inflation, instability, and political plunder. His fix? Competing currencies.

Modern historians depend heavily upon sweeping narratives and their take on the US War of Secession is no exception. Yet, the use of methodological individualism allows one to avoid sweeping judgments like claiming the Confederacy was founded upon belief in white supremacy.

Governments have so corrupted money that we forget that sound money, by providing both fungibility and privacy, has been a defense against overreaching governments. While sound money is in the interests of citizens, governments have managed to destroy it.

When Cardinal Robert Prevost was named Pope, he took the name of Pope Leo XIV. Leo XIII authored Rerum Novarum, which is the basis for Catholic social teaching and is friendlier to private property and free markets than anything the Vatican has produced since then.

The British complained of unfair competition from goods supplied by the American colonists. So the state intervened to manage trade and make it “fair.” But the American revolutionaries saw protectionism for the scam it was, and still is.

Original article: https://mises.org/power-market/return-first