Corporate Welfare

A New York Times article “

Perkins called his job that of an economic hit man — the person who makes the initial case for the infrastructure development with such optimistic (and purposely misleading) biases that they become deals that cannot be refused.

Lay and Skilling are hardly alone. The difference is that they are going to prison. This was not a case of executives looting their company and then hiding those assets in offshore bank accounts and absconding with their ill-gotten gains. Instead, it was a case of executives who believed their own hype — and that of the financial press — and failed to apply the fundamentals of sound business practices to their decisions.

This second myth about market failure is again a call for interventionism and support for bigger government. Natural monopolies don’t exist. The theory was made up after the fact. The only monopolies existing are those propped up by government privilege.

The myth of antitrust, the myth of the New Deal and labor union myths are three economic fallacies. All three declare that government must save capitalism from itself.

In this excerpt from his new book, Hans-Hermann Hoppe shows how taxation corrupts the political culture and harms social well being.

Is Google the next target of the government's antitrust police? William Anderson says it is possible.

Recorded at the Mises Institute, 7–8 October 2005. 

A condensed version of the documentary “Talking Butts,” Directed by Jesse Walker, Patrick McMenamin and Bretigne Shaffer; Produced by J