U.S. Economy

The Federal Reserve seems determined to deny the role they and President Bush has played in creating the hugh U.S. current account deficit.

Gene Callahan argues that despite vast research and erudition, Jared Diamond has little understanding of what history actually is.

The consequences of government control over such stock-market investments would be extremely grave, writes George Reisman. But there is another way.

The Confederate government blockaded the Southern economy by bad policies like impressment and trying to run the blockade themselves. The government declared that fifty percent of all cargo space had to be for the Confederate government.

Current monetary policy, writes Frank Shostak, is based on a theory of Knut Wicksell. How does Wicksell stack up to Mises?

Presented as part of the Mises Institute’s Brown Bag Seminar series on February 3, 2005 in Auburn, Alabama.

Tariffs were generally favorable for the North and unfavorable for the South. They were a key political battle for forty years. The Union General Scott developed the anaconda plan to squeeze the breath out of the South. The Union Blockade was the first part of that plan. This battle at sea won the war for the Union. The land battle was a stalemate.

Ultimately, the power of the Austrian Theory of the business cycle is not whether some economists of the Austrian School rolled the dice on some day trades and made money, writes William Anderson.

Opportunity cost is the proper economic basis for specialization and trade in resources. Opportunity cost is the highest value you give up when you make a choice. It was Confederate government policy that caused misallocations on the part of the South, making it inefficient and wasteful. A few of those bad policies were: drafting soldiers, confiscating resources, and monetary inflation.

Presented as part of the Mises Institute’s Brown Bag Seminar series on 20 January 2005 in Auburn, Alabama.