Mises Wire

Murray Rothbard didn’t need to explain to me on the bus why East Berlin, the so-called Paris of Eastern Europe, was a broken-down dump. He already had explained it to me in his numerous writings.

This new primer will be a short but devastating summary of real economics for the intelligent lay reader. The laws of economics cannot be ignored forever, and only the Austrian school provides the rational explanation for how and why the current interventions must unravel. Help us publish this book!

The problem with the European Union is not that it seeks to integrate Europe's economies. The problem comes from attempts to integrate politics as well. 

The assertion that “tax-financed public goods can make us all better off” is just that: an assertion. As Rothbard showed, there is no reason to just assume consumers would pay for these amenities were they not forced to through taxation. 

The economic analysis of repudiation applies to the debt of all levels of government and to all countries. The central question is not how big the government is or how much it owes, but rather whether the debt is funded by taxes.

Perhaps Murray’s greatest virtue was his genuine and abiding intellectual humility. 

"The true principle of isolationism is that the government should be isolated and people who trade, interchange, and engage in voluntary travel, migration, and so forth should be allowed to peacefully do so."

Instead of succumbing to the zeitgeist, Rothbard moved it.

When police ineptly scanned a car's license plate and wrongly decided the car was stolen, they proceeded to force a group of children to the ground at gunpoint. Will this qualify as a rights violation if "qualified immunity" is absent? The courts will decide. 

As the money supply has skyrocketed, money has flooded into stocks, bonds, single-family housing, and crypto. But this doesn't translate into general prosperity for the countless unemployed and underemployed who face rising prices.