Volume 8, No. 4 (Winter 2005) During the late nineteenth century, when silver agitation threatened the gold standard in the United States, gold bonds offered investors some protection from the uncertainties concerning the monetary standard in the United States. Gold bonds, therefore, sold at a premium relative to similar currency bonds. This
The Free Market 19, no. 1 (January 2001) According to the dictionary, the word “wanton” means undisciplined or unruly, with connotations of self-indulgent, arrogant recklessness, and a disregard for justice or the rights of others. The word goes back to Middle English, being a combination of the words “wanting” or “wane,” meaning a lack of, and
Ludwig von Mises was the foremost advocate of the gold standard of his day. Yet, he recognized that gold only became the world’s premier monetary metal because of a botched attempt to establish a bimetallic standard, in which the government tried to fix the value of gold in terms of silver ( Human Action, 3rd revised edition, p. 471 ). Well,
With all the recent news about con men operating phony businesses, I was struck by a curious item I came across on eBay. It was a $3 bill from the Salem & Philadelphia Manufacturing Company of New Jersey, dated 1828. It wasn’t the $3 amount of the note that caught my attention, as notes from that period came in many amounts that have long since
Ready for “Pinkbacks,” that is, for Federal Reserve notes with a pink hue? Yes, the Federal Reserve is continuing to experiment with new, more difficult-to-counterfeit paper money. First it was BIG FACES (along with the introduction of a variety of other counterfeit-proof characteristics into our Federal Reserve notes). Next, maybe, it will be
There’s a movement afoot to place a portrait of our nation’s fortieth President, Ronald Reagan, onto one of the denominations of our currency. The last two changes, putting first Susan B. Anthony’s countenance, and then Sacagawea’s on the $1 coin, proved to be failures. The prior two changes, putting President John F. Kennedy’s face on the 50¢
Following the Panic of 1819, the state of Kentucky sought to provide relief from the suddenly harsh burden of debt on many of its citizens, by creating the Bank of the Commonwealth, a new kind of bank, one completely owned by the state government and not at all bothered by specie, and by suspending foreclosure for up to two years upon the tender
The Islamic Republic of Iran has just issued a new 50,000 rial banknote. An eye-catching feature of the banknote is the atomic symbol on its reverse side, an orange-hued representation of six electrons in orbit. Money has been “backed” by a wide range of things, from silver and gold, to central banks, to assertions of raw power. This atomic symbol
On Wednesday, November 14, 2007, federal agents raided the Indianapolis headquarters of a company called NORFED, the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and Internal Revenue Code, and seized its holdings of gold, silver, and copper, much of it in the form of coins bearing the likeness of US Congressman Dr. Ron Paul of
Responding to a question at the Brookings Institute, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarked, Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what — it’s growing like crazy. And the rich are getting richer, but they’re pulling people out of poverty. There is a certain formula there that used to work for us until
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.