Think of it! The finest orchestrations ever known to man, the most beautiful music any individual on earth has heard — all mine, and done for me privately when I want it, and where I want it, and for no more than the flick of a switch. Staggering! Yet I, like most Americans, take it for granted. We...
Audio Mises Daily
Audio recordings of Mises Daily articles.
The main error of widespread pessimism is the belief that the destructionist ideas and policies of our age sprang from the proletarians and are a “revolt of the masses.” In fact, the masses — precisely because they are not creative and do not develop philosophies of their own — follow the leaders...
As the president signs the trillion-dollar stimulus package into law, financial networks are abuzz with investment pundits speculating on what companies will benefit, and thus what stocks should be purchased. Such analysis makes an error of causality commonly found in equities research. It assumes a...
I’ve always been perplexed by the dichotomy that often divides people’s avowed beliefs and their actions. It may be hard to accept the moral and economic evils of socialism, in the abstract, but it’s also hard to vote against it. It turns out to be fairly easy, however (if potentially dangerous), to...
Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed
This audio version of the Mises.org Daily Article was read by Dr. Floy Lilley. David Gordon covers new books in economics, politics, philosophy, and law for ‘The Mises Review’, the quarterly review of literature in the social sciences, published since 1995 by the Mises Institute.
Studying Jörg Guido Hülsmann’s latest book, The Ethics of Money Production, is a vastly enriching experience. After building his case for natural money on the inviolability of an individual’s right to his own property, he then shows us how the state has spent the last 400 years usurping this right...
I am tired of hearing economists argue that government and the Fed should expand credit for the good of the economy. Sometimes an analogy clarifies a subject, so let’s try one. It may sound crazy, but suppose the government were to decide that the health of the nation depends upon producing Jaguar...
In their zeal to oppose the lunacy of the so-called “stimulus” plan, many radio talk show hosts and other pundits have fallen into the Keynesian trap. Rather than the politicians spending nearly a trillion dollars, they argue, it would provide much more stimulus if the government gave massive tax...
Unfortunately, we cannot remain neutral while the experts battle. The global-warming advocates support drastic measures that would seriously affect production. Some of them go further and call for curbs on human population. In this connection, it is more than a little disturbing that John Holdren...
If it were possible to lift real economic growth by means of money pumping, world poverty would have been eradicated a long time ago. Real economic growth requires real savings to fund various activities that support and promote it, writes Frank Shostak. This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Floy...
Equity markets have collapsed in value, bond yields are off, real-estate markets are (in many places) in a state of disarray, monetary devaluation through government inflation is a constant dilemma, bailouts occur weekly, and wars and rumors of wars seem to lurk in the distance. Investing of any...
Economists of this century of the broadest vision and the keenest insight — men such as Ludwig von Mises, Frank H. Knight, and F.A. Hayek — came early to the conclusion that mastery of pure economic theory was not enough, and that it was vital to explore related and fundamental problems of...
One of the fatalities of publishing at a rocket pace is that some amazing treasures get overlooked. So this column, perhaps the first of a series, covers some titles in the Mises Store that have not received much attention in the praiseworthy swirl of mania over Rothbard’s Mystery of Banking and...
The mixing of politics and business not only is detrimental to politics, as is frequently observed, wrote Ludwig von Mises in 1926, but even much more so to business. Many large enterprises must give thousands of considerations to political matters, which plants the seeds of bureaucratism. But all...
John Steele Gordon’s “short history” of banking is filled with falsehoods. He blames Jefferson’s opposition to central banking for economic problems that were in fact created by Hamilton’s Bank of the United States. The system of financial regulatory dictatorship that Gordon praises, and which is...
Libertarians of course believe in the free market; if you find someone who favors the government provision of medical care or education, e.g., you know immediately that he is not a full-fledged libertarian. But how far can one take the free market? Can it handle absolutely all the essential services...
Bankruptcy is a normal part of economic life, covered by laws that guarantee stockholders will be compensated as much as possible. More efficient firms move in to take over what is left of bankrupt firms, buying what can be put to productive use. There is no crime in bankruptcy and, if handled...
The idea of private coinage seems so strange today that it is worth examining carefully. We are used to thinking of coinage as a “necessity of sovereignty.” Yet, after all, we are not wedded to a “royal prerogative,” and it is the American concept that sovereignty rests, not in government, but in...
As I have read countless analysts, including professional economists, offer “solutions” to the financial crisis, I have become more convinced of the importance of capital theory. You see this with the dichotomy people keep drawing between the financial markets and the “real economy,” a distinction...
As a decentralized communication system facilitating the sending and receiving of messages by billions of people, the Internet has greatly shifted the balance of power away from governments and toward sovereign individuals. Even in its early days, the Internet played a vital role in bringing about...
