Mainstream economists define inflation as the increase in an imaginary “price level” that is relatively neutral in its effects. Austrian economists, however, know better, as they realize that the effects of inflating the money supply are anything but neutral.
Once a recession sets in, markets can only repair themselves if prices — including wages — are allowed to fall where necessary. The resulting increases in real interest rates are the key to spurring new economic activity.
With the deadline for obtaining the federal government‘s Real ID technically upon us, it‘s important to understand that this is not an irritating but necessary program to keep Americans safe. It's the latest example of the government using 9/11 as an excuse to grab more power.
Mainstream economists have been obsessed with finding “optimal” tax rates, and Nicholas Kaldor‘s 1940 formalization of the “optimal” tariff is no exception. Austrian economists, however, know that there is no such thing as an “optimal” tax, given the harm taxation causes.
The Trump White House has enacted tariffs in the belief that other countries are “cheating” by enacting tariffs against US goods and “manipulating” their currencies. However, with the US dollar being the world's reserve currency, the US has engaged in dollar manipulation through inflation.
When people speak of “social justice,” they are not speaking of justice in any historical form but rather an imaginary state of affairs in which the state enforces a progressive view of equality. F.A. Hayek wrote that “social justice” is “wholly devoid of meaning or content.”
Jonathan Newman joins Bob Murphy to explore what economics really is, why it matters, and how the revamped Mises Academy is helping teach it the right way.
Although government officials and true believers in “green energy” are denying it, the collapse of the electric grid in Spain and Portugal proves that reliance on renewables for electric production is doomed to failure. Whether people listen is another story.
Although politicians, pundits, and the media claim that a trade deficit is harmful to a country, the reality is much different. In a free economy, individuals interact with each other in mutually-beneficial exchanges. As Murray Rothbard noted, free exchanges do not produce winners and losers.
Have Americans forgotten how to be free? When warfare erupted between American colonists and the British government, the colonists believed that they had God-given rights that protected them against state power. Would that Americans today believed the same thing.
