The US is dishing out the big bucks to US firms assisting in the “rebuilding” of Iraq, and the Washington Post offers a look into how it’s done. Back in November, Creative Associates of DC was consulted in how contracts ought to be awarded in the reconstruction of Iraq’s educational system. When bidding time came, Creative Associates seemed like
I couldn’t resist bidding on a few of the Saddam Dinars available through Ebay . I ended up with four 100-dinar notes and four 250-dinar notes, all uncirculated. I paid about $1.00 for each. It appears that face value is not an issue here, except for the 10,000-dinar notes that Iraqis do not want but for which Americans are paying as much as
Edmund L Andrews filed the chilling story ” Why Wheels of Recovery Are Spinning in Iraq “ for the NYT: “Electricity, essential to restoring normalcy to business and personal life, remains crippled because looters are stealing copper cable as quickly as it is being installed. Oil production, Iraq’s main source of income, is still far below its
Economy Seen Poised for Recovery (AP): “The U.S. economy has taken hits during the past three years from the bursting stock market bubble, a recession and terrorist attacks. Conditions now, finally, offer the prospect of better growth during the last six months of the year. But forecasters concede they made similar predictions in 2002 and 2001 and
USA Today offers an outstanding analysis of why an “ Aging Population Makes this Deficit Scarier “ than the one in the 1980s: “When deficits started taking off 20 years ago, the retirement of the baby boom generation was just a distant worry. Now, as the nation faces years of red ink, including at least a $400 billion shortfall in 2003 alone, the
Courtesy of LRC : “ The Price of Freedom “ (Slate): “Americans are not so innately freedom-loving that we would never let it dribble away without noticing. I can prove this because it actually happened, within the adult lifetimes of anyone over about 50. On August 15, 1971, more or less out of the blue, President Nixon declared a freeze on wages
The WSJ runs a good attack on the “ Medicare Drug Folly ,” which the editorial blasts: “We’re all for a prosperous old age, but it is hardly a step toward social justice for comfortable retirees to be further subsidized by working taxpayers with mortgages and kids...” But one name is missing: George W. Bush, who is the primary backer of the $400
The business headlines are dominated by today’s “stampede,” of course, so it is interesting to look back at Frank Shostak’s article from last week ( Has a New Bull Market Begun ?): “Since January of this year the growth momentum of adjusted money AMS [ Austrian Money Supply ] shows a visible rebound. The yearly rate of growth jumped from 1% in
How much of society’s security from rights violations, and justice for those who are caught, do we owe to the government’s police and courts? The usual answer is: most or all of it. Andrea Elliot in the New York Times , however, documents the workings of a completely private system we all take for granted: the routine policing of department
Consumer Prices Flat in May, say the headlines. But the BLS press release tells a more complicated story: “During the first five months of 2003, the CPI-U rose at a 2.3 percent seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR).This compares with an increase of 2.4 percent for all of 2002. The index for energy, which rose 10.7 percent in 2002, advanced at a
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.