Like bad money driving out good money, government intervention can also create Gresham’s law conditions for entrepreneurs. Using the political process, bad entrepreneurs can get government to regulate entrepreneurial competition out of business.
As the war in Ukraine drags on in its third year, Ukraine is bleeding and the future is even more gloomy. Unfortunately, even though it is time to end this conflict, the Biden administration continues to demand this war be fought to the last living Ukrainian.
Welfare is usually seen as state-run activity. Yet, as Mises and others have noted, state-sponsored welfare undermines the economy and expands government power. Private charity is the only system that is sustainable and just.
Socialists pride themselves on their supposed good intentions even as they fashion policies that create havoc and harm the people socialists claim to be helping. Ludwig von Mises called it destructionism.
As total (mostly part-time) "jobs" rose 273,000 in May—thanks largely to made-up numbers—total employed workers fell by 408,000 people.
Keynesian economists have no good explanation for stagflation, rising rates of both inflation and unemployment. However, the Austrian School has long pointed out that sustained inflation has a predictable pattern that leads ultimately to stagflation.
Contra Keynesians, who believe that government spending and bureaucracy are the keys to economic growth, it is the bureaucratic state that swallows resources and stifles entrepreneurs. The more powerful the bureaucracy, the lower the standard of living.
Socialism does not infect our body politic just through economic measures. The current obessession with implementing DEI policies has all of the hallmarks of how socialist measures undermine a private property order.
State-sponsored fiat money has been the norm for more than ninety years, but its very instability makes it vulnerable to a regime of sound money.
Oil prices have weakened in recent weeks despite the war in Gaza and rising geopolitical risk. This points to overall economic contraction.
