The rock icon David Bowie died peacefully yesterday surrounded by family after an 18-month bout with cancer. While his obituarists justly focus on his musical genius and his mastery of a broad range of musical genres, his political views deserve some attention. Although Bowie mainly kept his political views to himself, there are indications
A month ago, the world waited with bated breath in anticipation of the Fed’s increase in the fed funds rate of 25 basis points. This week Larry Summers, former U. S. Treasury Secretary, solemnly questioned whether “the world economy could comfortably withstand four hikes” i n the fed funds rate during 2016, which was the consensus forecast of the
Economists have long argued that irresistible market forces will crush a cartel that inefficiently restricts supply and raises the price of a product. These forces are: (1) external competition from new entrants into the industry eager to profit by expanding supply and undercutting the high cartel price; and (2) internal competition from smaller
... according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) — the so-called central banks’ central bank. The BIS has just released a research report questioning whether negative interest rates are effective in achieving policymakers’ goals of staving off a (phantom) deflation without adversely impacting the financial sector and the overall
In a remarkable TV interview , Otmar Issing, the former Chief Economist of the European Central Bank and a former member of its Board, dismisses negative interest rates as a solution to what ails Europe. According to Issing, ... low investment is certainly not due to too high interest rates. It’s due to regulation, political uncertainty, global
In 2016, the Fed’s annual stress test on banks will include a scenario in which the interest rate on the three-month U.S. Treasury bill becomes negative in the second quarter of 2016 and then declines to -0.5%, remaining at that level until the first quarter of 2019. According to the Fed, ”The severely adverse scenario is characterized by a
It should come as no surprise that the German government has finally succumbed to the pressure to join the global War on Cash . It is now considering the imposition of a limit of 5,000 euros ($5,450) on cash transactions. The official reason involves the usual statist malarkey that cash facilitates terrorism and criminality. Thus, according
Former baseball player José Canseco, who wrote a tell-all book on steroid use in baseball, is no fan of negative interest rates, recently tweeting : Who is advising Japan? Forcing banks to lend all ¥ will not get 2% inflation. It creates loanees market with even lower rates. Dumb
On January 20, 2016, 18-year old Laura Hillier slipped away surrounded by her family while waiting for a stem cell transplant to treat her acute myeloid leukemia. But Laura did not die because of a lack of bone marrow donors since multiple matching donors had been identified six months earlier. Rather Laura was on the waiting list for a hospital
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.