Mises Wire

The thinking goes that MIT's new GDP-B measure allows the statistician to estimate a “consumer surplus.”

The increasing importance of elite higher education is a symptom of "political capitalism" in which success is determined by political connections rather than by the satisfaction of consumer preferences in the marketplace.

Liberty can be lost and so can the benefits of capital accumulation. The well developed capital structure is not a given. It can be eroded by central banks and by government policies and regulations.

Austerity need not be painful when the contraction of the public sector is accompanied by the expansion of the private sector. Thus, the real solution lies in fostering more progress in entrepreneurship and private ownership.

A "neutral" interest rate cannot be observed through any statistical test or public policy. But central bankers are sure they can find it and use it to endlessly tinker with the economy.

The consequences of counterfeiting are the same regardless of who does it. The counterfeiters are exchanging nothing for something — thus stealing from those who create real value.

If central banks had all respected a 1-2% floor to interest rates through the last decade how would economic recovery have taken place and what would have been the nature of the expansion?

The emergence of "catastrophe bonds" in recent decades suggests an interesting way that Climate Warriors could alleviate the presumed costs of climate change — assuming climate activists are willing to spend any of their own money on the problem.

The New Deal invigorated a bureaucratic state which had already done much to limit the entrepreneurial opportunities of Americans of all racial and economic backgrounds.

In the short term, a central bank can drive up stock prices by lowering the interest rate. In the longer term, it could sap the strength out of an economy.