Mises Wire

Some Latin American policymakers seem to think China will offer easy terms for loans and trade agreements. They're wrong. China isn't as rich as many think.

Clearly marked prices on private-sector cash-payment surgeries are a great thing. In fact, the competition of for-profit surgery centers drives down prices at more "traditional" (i.e., highly bureaucratized) hospitals.

Singapore left both the British Empire and Malaysia before finally becoming an independent city. It then proceeded to become one of history's most impressive economic success stories.

Statistical data is merely history, but a competent historian does not simply let the events speak for themselves. He arranges them according to the ideas underlying the general notions he uses in their presentation. He does not report facts as they happened, but only relevant facts.

Economic history is possible only because there is an economic theory capable of throwing light upon economic actions. If there were no economic theory, reports concerning economic facts would be nothing more than a collection of unconnected data open to any arbitrary interpretation.

When governments raise the cost of obtaining a good, many people will opt for buying a higher quality (or more potent) version of the good with each transaction.

Karl Marx agreed with Rothbard that individual rights lead to inequality. For Marx, though, this was an argument against rights.

Proponents of socialized medicine assert that markets cannot be trusted with healthcare due to "market failure." But the assumed "failures" of health markets are not improved by socializing healthcare.

Our foremost mission is to fight back in the war of ideas, and we must.

In order to expand production and increase productivity — and thus increase the standard of living — it is necessary to use capital. And so it makes sense to pay interest on capital lent, so as to encourage the maintenance and production of capital for the future.