The Free Market 16, no. 3 (March 1998) Seen and heard almost everywhere in New York are these four words: “Hey, you never know.” It’s the slogan of the New York State Lottery Commission, and it is used to trick people into a self-imposed form of higher taxation. The pursuit of the average Joe’s dollars is relentless. Day and night the slickly
The Free Market 16, no. 11 (November 1998) Big media outlets are ignoring the quiet revolution that is taking place across America. Politicians don’t talk too much about it for obvious reasons. This revolution is building incredible momentum. It now threatens the legitimacy of every level of government, the viability of government management of
The Free Market 17, no. 3 (March 1999) Duality is the Visa and MasterCard management policy that allows banks doing business with one to issue both credit cards. It is a contractual arrangement the merits of which must be tested by the market. There is no way to know ahead of time which contracts will (and should) survive and which will (and
The Free Market 17, no. 9 (August 1999) No New York City public institution better illustrates the rise and decline of the city than the subways. The subways were primarily built by private-sector entrepreneurs at the turn of the century. On Oct. 27, 1904, the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT), the first subway line in the city, began operating
The Free Market 17, no. 8 (August 1999) Those arguing that Wall Street and other major industries cannot survive without a strong regulatory structure because regulators keep markets fair must now answer a basic question: Who regulates the regulators? The query comes in the wake of a recent blatant conflict of interest at the Securities and
The Free Market 17, no. 11 (November 1999) Jesse Ventura, Governor of Minnesota, took a position that is extremely rare in state government. He said that neither the state nor the city nor any other unit of government should spend any money on funding yet another municipal ballpark or providing a taxpayer subsidy to professional ball teams and
The Free Market 18, no. 4 (April 2000) The Republican Congress, fearful of taking on a Democratic president who plays the class-warfare card, again has failed tens of millions of small American businesses and families: The death tax lives. And tens of thousands of small businesses are at risk as long as it survives. A tax cut bill, which was
The Free Market 23, no. 9 (September 2003) I t happens in every bear market and in every crash. Investors get it wrong. Then regulators get it wrong. They look for scapegoats and find the wrong ones. They whoop up a holy war in the popular press as markets are embraced by a persistent bear. They indict the wrong people. They’re like the
The Free Market 20, no. 1 (January 2002) And you thought the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was only for fat cats! The hired help on the Potomac, many of whom reluctantly approved a piddly little tax cut this summer, are going to give a new meaning, over the next few years, to that wonderful principle of fiscal skullduggery and political
The Free Market 20, no. 3 (March 2002) On May Day 1971, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, later known as Amtrak, took over a group of overregulated bankrupt private railroads. Officials of Amtrak, which is a blending of the words American and track, announced that the government would make money on these bankrupt railroads. The public
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.