This past Tuesday afternoon, I was speaking with a reporter who was interested in the positive effects of infrastructure spending that occurred in the form of fiscal “stimulus” in my part of the country, back during the dark days of the Great Recession, around 2009 and 2010. How did this help our region, he wanted to know? My answer: It didn’t
The Free Market 26, no. 2 (February 2008) Years of spending, inflating, taxing, and redistributing has left the US economy teetering on a recession that our best and brightest—meaning the ones who created this mess—claim requires a multibillion-dollar economic-relief package to quell fears, promote confidence, and spur recovery. And, one might
The Free Market 31, no. 5 (May 2013) You may have heard of Lilly Ledbetter. If you are concerned about the sorry state of U.S. employment, you may wish you hadn’t. This woman from Jacksonville, Alabama, a minor figure in the 2012 presidential campaign—occasionally invoked by Barack Obama, mostly ignored by Mitt Romney—is a former Goodyear
Volume 8, No. 4 (Winter 2005) When studying the origins of the Austrian School, one is often struck by the influence played by Catholic thinkers and culture during the centuries leading up to the publication of Menger’s Principles. As a result, the free market theorist is often puzzled by the many important Catholic thinkers who, since the
Here’s the abstract from a new paper in the October 2013 issue of Economic Inquiry : During their meetings, the members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) make monetary policy, but they also make each other laugh. This article studies the amount of laughter elicited by members of the FOMC during their meetings. The study finds that a
Congress had just passed the Underwood Tariff (reinstating the federal income tax following the passage of the 16th Amendment) and, miracle of miracles, the stock market began to slump. While the trade-off for passing the income tax was a reduction in tariff rates—this way, the tax’s proponents could claim pro-trade motivations—the
You were considered a hoarder and a slacker if you still resisted turning over your gold to the government. From the New York Times, June 13, 1933: (Click on the image for a sharper picture.) Roosevelt had only been in office for 101 days and while there was broad bipartisan support for inflationary policies in Congress, it’s safe to say that most
Thomas Sowell recently sat down with Peter Robinson to discuss his latest book, Intellectuals and Race . Here’s a short excerpt: Robinson: [N]ow you’re saying that multiculturalists [who argue for] bringing kids into [academic] institutions for which they’re ill-qualified — you take bright, hard-working, otherwise perfectly well-qualified
A new book by Portuguese economist João Ferreira do Amaral entitled Why We Should Leave the Euro is outselling Fifty Shades of Grey there. This makes sense given that both books center on painful relationships in which one party is being spanked and that are apparently difficult to dissolve. (h/t Bill
The inestimable Jim Grant of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer reminds Washington Post readers that the United States has defaulted on its debt in the past and will do so again in the future. Almost as educational as Grant’s op-ed are the accompanying comments from beltarians who are simply shocked--shocked!--that there are people beyond its border
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.