Mises Wire

In this lengthy interview, Walter Block talks to the Brazilian libertarian group "Liberball" about a wide variety of topics from revisionist history to business regulation to Murray Rothbard. 

A recent report commissioned by the prime minister of Iceland calls for limits on the money supply through ending fractional reserve banking and deposit insurance. Unfortunately, the report also calls for nearly unlimited control of the money supply by the central bank.

Mises Daily Tuesday by Patrick Barron:

A recent report commissioned by the prime minister of Iceland calls for limits on the money supply through ending fractional reserve banking and deposit insurance. Unfortunately, the report also calls for nearly unlimited control of the money supply by the central bank.

The Economist declares there is no such thing as a Skyscraper Curse and they have the mainstream empirical evidence to support that declaration.

The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.

The story of intervention is as old as governments and commerce, and even though the details change, the basic narrative stays the same.

Today on The Santelli Exchange on CNBC, Rick Santelli acknowledged CHASE Bank's war on cash using Joe Salerno's Mises Wire post from Monday: 

The war against cash has, up to now, been waged almost exclusively by national governments and official international organizations, although there are exceptions.  Now the war has acquired a powerful new ally in Chase, the largest bank in the U.S. and a subsidiary of JP Morgan Chase and Co., according to Forbes, the world's third largest public company.   Of course , it is hardly surprising that a crony capitalist fractional-reserve bank, which received $25 billion in bailout loans from the U.S. Treasury, should want to curry favor with its regulators and  political masters and, in the process, ensure its own stability by helping to stamp out the use of cash. 

If the Venezuelan example of socialism’s ultimate consequences baffles anybody, it is because of how little (economic) history people remember, and how quickly its lessons are forgotten.

One of the most pervasive and dangerous myths of our time is that military spending benefits an economy. This could not be further from the truth. Such spending benefits a thin layer of well-connected and well-paid elites. It diverts scarce resources from meeting the needs and desires of a population and channels them into manufacturing tools of destruction.