Recent Podcast Episodes

Economics deals with the preferences you are actually acting on. The judgment you are not acting on could still be around. So, action does not imply total judgment.

Praxeology is a set of conceptual tools about the theory of action. It is the basis of economic theory. Whereas much has been fleshed out about the economics of human action, there is little about the ethics and natural rights of human action.

From the book For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, as narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

Loan banking is non-inflationary. Interest rates on loans are merely reflective of price spreads. All speculation, on the free-market, is self-correcting and speeds adjustment, rather than cause economic trouble.

Barter – direct exchange- is inefficient because of the lack of a double coincidence of wants. Some third medium was sought to solve this. It is called money. Exchanges are not equal, they are win-win, with each party gaining more than he is giving or the exchange would not be made.

Naturally occurring monopolies do not last long. Competition emerges to upset them. The sovereignty of the individual defines the free market. The only monopolies that do persist are those maintained by government interventions.

All action takes time. Humans use time as a tool. Time preference ranking is now, not later, although time preferences will differ over time and for different people, like children who want things right now.

Factors of Production are economic goods: scarce means used to achieve an individual’s ends. They are land, labor and capital. Each is examined. Incomes are earned by factor owners as production takes place. There is no separated production and distribution.

From the book For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, as narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

The immediate effect of price controls or any government intervention upon the market is shortage of goods. Price controls discourage production just when it is needed most. The economy approaches full socialization. Rent control is the easiest way to destroy a city besides bombing it.

Capitalist-entrepreneurs must anticipate supply and demand conditions of future market conditions. It is the future price - the appraisement – that must be compared to the costs of factors of production (land, labor, and capital).

What principles determine the formation of prices on the free market? The equilibrium price between supply and demand determines prices according to the value scales of sellers and buyers and their elastic or inelastic positions.

All action is exchange, even forced exchange like slavery, taxes, eminent domain and conscription, where only one party gains. The Law of Marginal Utility tells us how many exchanges will be made.

In this introduction to the basics of Austrian-school economic analysis, Joseph Salerno introduces a number of basic concepts including utility, exchange, psychic cost,  choice, and marginal value.

From the book For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, as narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

Walter Block and Tom DiLorenzo have looked at Constitutional Economics, and determined that politics are not just another market. There is only a curious analogy to the public choice approach. Social contract theory has been used as an excuse for all types of state intervention.

The interventionist myth is that Federal meddling in domestic or foreign economics can make anything better. Instead, meddling produced the American Great Depression. Doing nothing with a depression in 1920 produced resolution within eighteen months. Nobody hears of the depression of 1920-21.

There are labor market myths and there are labor union myths. The biggest myth is that capitalists always exploit the working class. Basic economics about marginal productivity theory contradicts this. Examples abound in all areas.

This second myth about market failure is again a call for interventionism and support for bigger government. Natural monopolies don’t exist. The theory was made up after the fact. The only monopolies existing are those propped up by government privilege.

The myth of antitrust, the myth of the New Deal and labor union myths are three economic fallacies. All three declare that government must save capitalism from itself.