Paul Krugman is now claiming that reopening the economy and allowing people to go to work almost surely will cause a depression. This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Millian Quinteros . Original Article: “ Krugman: We Need More Unemployment—to Save Us from Unemployment
Ever since winning the Nobel Memorial Prize in “Economic Science” in 2001, Joseph Stiglitz has been a one-man advocacy band for growth of the state. After 9/11, for example, he called for the formation of a federal agency to provide security for airline passengers, which he claimed would send a “signal” for quality. ( Stiglitz won his prize for
Nearly 40 years ago, Lawrence Reed published “Seven Fallacies of Economics” in The Freeman in which he noted that much of what the public believes about economics is fallacious because most people fail to understand simple opportunity cost. Given the current trends in political economy, it is a sad certainty that most if not all of the fallacies
The Free Market 21, no. 1 (January 2003) When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union ceased to exist two years later, many western commentators optimistically declared that socialism had fallen with those two entities. However, as we limp from one economic morass into another, it has become clear that the dream of socialism is far
The Free Market 19, no. 1 (January 2001) A mathematician and an economist were asked, “What is the sum of two plus two?” The mathematician immediately answered, “It is four.” The economist, on the other hand, closed all windows and doors and asked quietly, “What do you want it to be?” Just when we think this story is simply another silly
One of my pet peeves with Paul Krugman is his constant rewriting of history, a rewriting that just happens to coincide with left-wing political talking points. For example, we hear that the Great Depression occurred because Herbert Hoover was a staunch believer in laissez-faire and took the advice of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who called
While Paul Krugman likes to present himself as being a Keynesian, in reality, his intellectual roots run back a few centuries to the mercantilists. If you wish to see the Krugman of 300 years ago, read Bernard Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees , first published in 1705, to see all of the same economic (and logical) fallacies that haunt
A friend of mine a decade ago was looking to do doctoral work in economics, and one of the places where he inquired was his state’s flagship university. But he decided not to seek his doctorate at that particular place after he spoke to someone who was just about to defend his economics dissertation there. This soon-to-be PhD, it seems, was not
I recently took time from criticizing the actions of the Federal Reserve System (and associating with my “End the Fed” friends) to attend a conference in New York City that was hosted by none other than the Federal Reserve Bank of New York . As much as anything, I was curious as to what goes on at a Fed conference, and it also gave me the chance
In a recent screed masquerading as the thoughts of a Nobel prize winner in economics, Paul Krugman excoriates those who speak of fear: fear of a debt crisis, of runaway inflation, of a disastrous plunge in the dollar. Scare stories are very much on politicians’ minds. As Krugman explains, such worries are irrational and certainly untrue: None of
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.