Mises Daily

Economist Philipp Bagus talks with us from Europe about the Swiss franc, the euro, and what the future holds for the debt-laden governments of the Eurozone.

In recent years, some economists, contrary to long-established and widely-accepted economic theory, have been claiming that increases in the minimum wage do not increase unemployment. But both logic and the data say otherwise.

Government likes to put out lots of data showing things like income and employment for huge numbers of people. The problem is, this tells us almost nothing about how real-life people are hurt or helped by government intervention.

Backed into a corner and facing grim economic prospects, the Russian government may conclude that its best bet is to adopt some type of gold standard. The resulting panic in the West would be interesting to watch.

The opposite of secession is annexation wherein governments extend their monopolies over a greater territory. Just as secession naturally limits the power of states, annexation extends it, and should be opposed.

The European Central Bank plans to ramp up its own version of quantitative easing because it fears deflation. But deflation really means an increase in real wealth and an end to many malinvestments.

If we want to lower the cost of health care, we should seek to increase the availability of health care services, including increases in trained medical personnel. Government, however, acts repeatedly to prevent the entry of more doctors into the marketplace.

The government cripples the economy a little more each day, but thanks to the resilience of markets, we've avoided economic destruction. Nevertheless, we're still a lot poorer than we would have been without big government.

The European Central Bank is ramping up its easy-money policies in an effort to spur inflation, which it hopes will improve the economy. The wealthy and powerful will benefit from this, but most everyone else is in big trouble.

The Swiss central bank's decision to let the Swiss franc find its market value (compared to the euro) was predictable, yet it has caused instability for Swiss markets. Meanwhile, the peg never helped the Swiss economy.