Mises Wire

The Fed's balance sheet has risen to $4.1 trillion from $3.7 trillion in August. Nomi Prins discusses what this policy shift means and what it portends for 2020.

Uncritically holding democracy out as an ideal overlooks the question of whether market democracy or political democracy better serves citizens.

The task that civil rights laws were meant to carry out—the top-down management of various ethnic, regional, and social groups—had always been the main task of empires. The US now imposes this both domestically and globally.

In portraying the state as an integral part of economy and society, advocates of "state capacity libertarianism" ignore the state's unique political, i.e., predatory, nature.

The North American fur trade is in decline. Unfortunately, many think that the solution is for the government to step in to “protect” trappers from market competition.

Terrence Malick's new film about conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter is a subtle film. But perhaps too much so, and we need to look deeper to understand why this one man so vehemently resisted the Nazi state at the cost of his own life.

Why do we have money in the first place? Where does it come from, and what determines its form? What qualities make for a good money? What role do banks play—is it something other than what money itself does for us?

It is not money that funds economic activity, but the saved pool of consumer goods. The existence of money only facilitates the flow of savings. Any attempt to replace savings with money ends in economic disaster.

In terms of economics, what currently is should be of very little importance: what matters, and that we should seek to understand, is the process that brought it about and that will create what will be in its place.

In spite of all kinds of restrictions and red tape, consumer demand for firearms remains high, and the industry has found a way to meet that demand—through "80 percent lower receivers."