Big Government

Delivered at the Mises Institute on July 6, 2006.

There is no such thing as perfect neutrality in the world of economics. Information flows must be rationed somehow. Do we want it rationed by the market price system, or the likes of the US Senate? That is what the future of this technical debate is all about.

Russia, U.S.

The idea that people can provide things for themselves either individually or through the family frightens the state. It delegitimizes its role.

Or: We’re from the government—and we’re here to help.

What I have shown is that to the extent that government spending consists either of waste or of intermediate goods, measurement of the standard of living of those working in the private sector is rendered much more accurately by Rothbard's measurement of PPR per private sector worker than by the Department of Commerce's per capita GNP.

Special lecture presented at the Mises Institute on 6 June 2006.

Congressmen no longer read the bills they vote on and thus do not require them to make sense.

I loved my cat. Probably as much as my cousin, Malcolm, who owed me fifty bucks. So when she died — my cat, not Malcolm — I was unhappy.