In a money economy, the money commodity is on one side of every transaction, and hence reduces the number of relevant prices. The direct exchange ratio between any two commodities can easily be computed from their respective money prices. The “price” or purchasing power of money is the array of goods and services for which a unit of money can be
This year in the online Mises Academy I have been leading students through Murray Rothbard’s classic treatise, Man, Economy, and State . (For details on the current class, covering the final third of the book, see here .) In the previous class we covered Rothbard’s analysis of the pricing of land. This is an illuminating topic because it involves
Recently Ben Bernanke caused a stir when he suggested that, in the future, the Fed should play a role in combating asset bubbles. Although his specific ideas are analogous to asking Al Capone to combat organized crime, Bernanke’s suggestion does involve a genuine debate among academic economists: When assessing the tightness or looseness of
The U.S. Congress is holding hearings on why gasoline prices have risen; pundits are beginning to repeat the anti-capitalist oil company bashing of the 1970s; and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently issued a report blaming prosperity for rising housing prices and self-servingly calling for more HUD subsidies for
Appearing on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, July 30, Republican vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney endorsed the Clinton/Gore administration’s policy of energy socialism, only criticizing it as being insufficiently coercive and forceful. “We need a national energy policy,” said Cheney, apparently oblivious to the disastrous results of America’s
The government’s initial step in attempting to create a government-run healthcare monopoly has been to propose a law that would eventually drive the private health insurance industry out of existence. Additional taxes and mandated costs are to be imposed on health insurance companies, while a government-run “health insurance” bureaucracy will be
A year ago July, I sent my girlfriend some flowers. I picked up the phone, called a florist, and, for about thirty dollars, she received one dozen roses. Seven months later, for Valentine’s Day, I called the same florist and again ordered one dozen roses for my girlfriend. This time, however, they would cost one hundred twenty dollars. I was
Chronic underconsumption is an idea most often associated with Keynes. But while the infamous English economist published his General Theory in 1936, Hayek’s 1929 article “The ‘Paradox’ of Savings” analyzes a similar theory advanced by two Americans a decade before. [1] While the two authors have nearly vanished from history, the insights
What Determines the Price of Gold? The outlooks of gold analysts are diverse. After reading the latest WGC report, Mineweb is bullish : “Gold demand tops US$100 billion and mine supply remains under threat.” John Nadler, however, is bearish , citing the expected “additional 400–500 tonnes per annum” that will result from the exploration boom of
The field in economics called Industrial Organization is the very foundation of antitrust activity by government. And if you thought antitrust action was little more than one business using government to smash its competitors, The Economist (May 2, 1998) is here to correct you. According to this publication, it’s true that antitrust investigators
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.