Imposing restrictions on trade is not a mere academic exercise. It requires government agents, courts, prisons, police, and the whole panoply of the punitive, coercive state. To oppose free trade is to support more jails, fines, regulations, and more.
Every now and then, I get a letter from a reader that is full of great observations. Here is one of them:
Is government spending on infrastructure less of a misallocation than other spending?
Mises: To seek to organize society is just as crazy as it would be to tear a living plant to bits in order to make a new one out of the dead parts.
The Japanese response to negative interest rates was to buy personal safes. The German response is to pull money out of bank accounts and stick it in safe deposit boxes. Both are perfectly understandable reactions to the prospect of having to pay interest to a bank for holding deposits.
On the latest episode of Mises Weekends, Jeff Deist explains how the unprecedented actions of central bankers have helped spark renewed interest in Austrian economics.
The recent FOMC decision on Fed policy going forward was not unanimous. Let's take a look at who voted against the rest of the committee.
Joseph Salerno reviews James Grant's new book The Forgotten Depression — 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself in the spring 2016 issue of The Independent Review.
Listening to even a small portion of Simple Janet's incoherent babble makes very clear that the nation's central bank is well and truly impaled on its own petard.
The Chinese regime is broke, so its liquidating its US debt holdings to keep its welfare-warfare state going. The problem is that the US depends on China holding that debt so the US can keep its welfare-warfare state going.
