Mises Wire

Are bees really dying off, and can the government solve the problem? 

Mises Daily Friday by Christopher Casey:

It is now commonplace for governments to measure economic prosperity with GDP metrics. Numerous arbitrary rules and faulty assumptions behind these measures, however, skew our view of how economies grow and living standards improve.

Today's is Joe Salerno's birthday. He is an outstanding Austrian economist and Academic Vice-President of the Mises Institute.

Mark Thornton speaks with Albert Lu about the recent violence in Ferguson and Baltimore and what can be done. Dr. Thornton discusses this in his most recent article, found here. 

Our guest on Mises Weekends this week is uniquely qualified to discuss modern progressives from a libertarian perspective. Jim Ostrowski, whom Murray Rothbard called "one of the finest people in the libertarian movement," is a lawyer, writer, activist, and chronicler of progressive dysfunction in his native New York. He's the author of Progressivism: A Primer on the Idea Destroying America, which explains progressivism more as personal psychology than a coherent view of the world. If you're interested in how progressives managed to capture the 20th century, stay tuned.

Mp3 file here. 

What if you thought that the process involved in market mechanisms harmed society? That sizeable thumb on statist side of the evaluation scale could override other considerations and government intervention would “win” your endorsement even when it “loses.” In fact, by attributing a great enough weight to supposed harms from market processes, almost any government intervention could be argued to be justifiable. And even convincing demonstrations of government inadequacies and policy failures would do little to dent support for foolish interventions.

Mises Daily Thursday by Christopher J. O'Connell:

Some now blame employers that don’t pay a “living wage” for the fact that so many people receive welfare payments. So, the politicians want to tax employers for every minimum wage employee they hire. Needless to say, this won’t solve the problem.

Homer Economicus is the subject of a question on the TV show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"

Lyndo

Mises Daily Wednesday by Michael N. Giuliano:

The rise of government prosecutors in the US and Britain since the nineteenth century has led to many new forms of prosecutorial abuse and expansive government power. The older tradition of privately-initiated prosecution and restitution may offer a way out.