Mises Wire

We've been told that with enough data, we can use sophisticated computing methods to predict the future. That often works with the physical sciences, but predicting human action is something else altogether.

Government failure was being felt everywhere this week, from the massive law-enforcement failure in Sen Bernardino to the crumbling economy in Brazil. Meanwhile, government tells us it only needs a little more money, power, and time to solve all problems.

As the economy worsens, the Brazilian Congress this week announced that it will impeach the president of Brazil. Unfortunately, impeaching President Dilma Rousseff by itself will do little to fix Brazil’s economy when Brazilian politics remains dominated by anti-market forces.

Libertarian strategy has always been a vexing topic. Presidential election years, filled with statist campaign rhetoric, tend to cause existential pain and a reexamination of the fundamental question before us: What must be done to reduce the size and scope of the state? How can we realistically create a more libertarian society here and now, given the resources available and the range of tactical options? Is our primary task intellectual, with the goal of converting academic, financial, and political elites to our point of view? Or is a bottom-up strategy superior, one that focuses on populist messages and grassroots political activism?

Is our fight intellectual or populist?

Murray Rothbard addressed both of these approaches in a decidedly un-PC essay written in 1992, an election year that presented libertarians with many of the same issues faced today. He discusses the goal of influencing elite thinkers, a process he termed “Hayekian conversion,” and contrasts it with the goal of reaching the masses through populist messaging.

Today's BLS employment data release may not be as "solid" as the media are reporting.

Why has the Brazilian congress voted to proceed with impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff?

Last month, Bernie Sanders pointed out that once upon a time, government programs such as Social Security were regarded as "socialism."

The idea that the state will one day dry up and blow away is an unrealistic fantasy. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be abolitionists. Our goal should always be to seize every opportunity to shrink the State.

Days after the Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado Springs, President Obama had the chutzpah to stand up in Paris of all places and declare that mass shootings don't occur "in other countries."

Fractional-reserve banking systems create money out of thin air, and this causes malinvestments into less valuable and less productive activities. Eventually, banks realize there's trouble ahead, so they cut back on loans which leads to deflation and crisis.