The year 2006 seems like a lifetime ago. The housing boom seemed to be going full throttle, but danger lurked. I wrote on LewRockwell.com in March of that year, concerning a Las Vegas real estate seminar, that “nary a discouraging word was spoken.” But despite the happy talk coming from the podium that day, pleasing the thirteen hundred attendees,
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. Does a pandemic trump entrepreneurial foresight? Many in business will say yes, “nobody saw this coming.” Lack of customer demand and government lockdowns are “no fault of their own.” But Penny Chutima, co-owner of the Lotus of Siam restaurant, did see it coming. Chutima and her mother,
The stadium naming curse is well known. Enron Field, Adelphia Coliseum, and MCI Center are just a few examples of bankruptcy following a company’s name adorning its home team’s stadium or arena. Financial trouble typically comes after the name is attached and the team plays some games. In the newest case, the company is struggling before a game
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. The Las Vegas Strip continues to be a ghost town. The entertainment capital of the world is now a shadow of itself, boarded up by order of the state’s governor. Also sitting vacant is all of the city’s convention and meeting space, totaling 11.5 million square feet. Las Vegas has engaged in a
“Russia, Russia, Russia,” the current president used to sarcastically chastise opponents for wondering about 2016 election tinkering from Putin’s principality. Recent MAGA rallies featured “Covid, covid, covid,” with President Trump complaining that the press could think of nothing else. In investmentland, it’s “Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin,” again
Trump’s lady-in-waiting for the Federal Reserve, Judy Shelton, is losing Republican support by the day. The Washington Post unleashed its comeliest columnist, Catherine Rampell, to finish off Shelton, whose primary negative is her past support for the gold standard and her questioning the need for the central bank at all. Adherents of the Austrian
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. In a 60 Minutes interview in 2011, gambler Billy Walters said he was swindled by Wall Street, losing big on Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco shares. Walters made his fortune betting on football and basketball games. Professional gamblers have little to bet on these days with most sports shut
Although we’ve been given a brief respite from COVID-19 pandemic news, it’s likely that the killer of over one hundred thousand so far in America will leap back to the front page and that continuous calls to flatten the curve will return to top of the mind. As a friend and fellow ex–University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) Rothbard student reminded
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. I suppose the first I read of the Great Influenza was in the first few pages of the Charles Portis masterpiece True Grit . The book’s heroine, Mattie Ross, tells readers about Yarnell Poindexter, whom Mattie’s papa left at the farm to look after her mama and the family while he went to
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. While the economic storm caused by COVID-19 has seemed to wane (temporarily?), the stock market can’t seem to go but one direction—up. Graham and Dodd’s meaty 700-page Security Analysis has soared to number 7695 on the Amazon best-seller list. According to Warren Buffett, the book is “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.