With all the brouhaha going around regarding income and wealth inequality , the question that is rarely asked is why inequality is something to abhor. As I wrote last November , whether inequality is a bad thing is not the right question – what matters more is your standard of living. Imagine that you earn $40,000 a year and your boss doubles you
Christine Lagarde admits that the International Monetary Fund “got it wrong” when it chastised the British government’s austerity plans. One year ago the IMF’s chief economist Oliver Blanchard claimed the U.K. was “playing with fire” by cutting its budget. With the benefit of hindsight, the IMF has changed its stance. The U.K. economy is set to
The public sector in France is among the best financed in Europe. Taxes claim around 45% of all income earned in the country, but even that is not enough to finance all the government projects. The country also runs a public budget deficit of over 3% of GDP, putting the whole output of the French government around 50% of the whole economy. With
The British Columbia’s teachers union just voted 86% in favour of an all out strike. If a settlement is not reached with the provincial government before the end of this week, nearly 40,000 teachers could be walking the picket line come Monday. At stake are the common issues of class size, salary, and benefits. Strikes by public teachers are
Striking taxi drivers snarled traffic in several European cities yesterday in a show of solidarity against a common threat. Unlike other protests of the past few years which have largely been against austerity measures, this time workers from London, Paris, Berlin and Madrid were unified against Uber . A smartphone app that connects drivers and
[ LewRockwell.com ] by Lew Rockwell Anyone wanting to learn more about anarcho-capitalism could do no better than to begin with two books by Murray Rothbard, For a New Liberty and The Ethics of Liberty . The first of these diagnoses what is wrong with the regime of state domination: the second describes in substantial detail how the anarchist
Stephen Poloz, Governor of the Bank of Canada, thinks Canada may have a housing problem on its hands: On the home front high house prices and record household debt remain the most important “vulnerabilities” in the Canadian financial system – a problem highlighted in reports this week by both the International Monetary Fund and the Organization
Jim Bovard talks with Jeff Deist about his incendiary career as a journalist, the American people as Mencken’s “Booboisie”, and why the Nanny State has him stocking-up on cigars. iTunesU: https://itunes.apple. com/us/itunes-u/mises- weekends/id884207568 Mises.org: http://mises.org/ media/categories/283/Mises- Weekends Stitcher:
French Socialist President Francois Hollande won his election in 2012 on a platform to soak the rich and protect the generous welfare state. Now his Prime Minister Manuel Valls is warning that such policies could cause the French left to disappear unless Socialist party supporters start backing the government’s business-friendly reforms. After
Over at Mises Canada, my Saturday article worked through the finer points of a better way to discuss unemployment. One problem with current measures is that the actual unemployment rate has little bearing on how difficult it is to get a job. There are periods with high numbers of unemployed masses but with many people finding a job, and stagnant
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.