Mises Search

A friend recently emailed me about my recent column on Mises.org about the economist Paul Krugman . Why, he wanted to know, “don’t so many mainstream economists realize that tinkering with the economy actually screws it up?”  It’s a good question and one that could be answered in many ways, with each answer containing an element of truth to it.

Farmer Freeman woke up one morning last week to find two dozen armed federal officers on his Vermont farm, gathering up his sheep. They were taking them to Iowa, where the sheep would be slaughtered and then tested for mad cow disease. This wasn’t Freeman’s first mad-cow encounter with the government. Last summer, Freeman and other sheep farmers

What is it about economic downturns that get mainstream economists and economic journalists into a frenzy?  Robert L. Bartley, the editor of the Wall Street Journal , inadvertently answered this question in his “Talking Things Over” column last week. “We’ve survived real recessions and real bear markets before,” writes Bartley, “yet somehow the

Cornell Univerity’s Robert H. Frank has come up with a novel explanation for increased traffic congestion in a recent op-ed in the New York Times , and it’s very simple, you see.  The problem can be blamed on increased income inequality. Frank’s explanation is based on something he calls the Aspen effect.  ”Greater Aspen,” he tells us, is

Robert Reich is the Left’s favorite economic analyst.  His commentaries on National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System, not to mention his paean to the peerless John Maynard Keynes in Time m agazine earlier this year, bear this out.  The reason for this status easily can be gleaned from his most recent book, The Future of Success.   

At the doctor’s office, we are faced with long waiting periods in crowded waiting rooms, and when the doctor finally sees us, he is rushed for time.  The quality of service and the attention to detail suffer in such a situation, increasing the level of frustration for both doctor and patient. The doctor’s every action is monitored-either directly,

What happens when organized labor strikes against another union, and not against a private firm?  This is the case in Birmingham, Alabama, where union field representatives and office workers of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1657 began picketing their union’s headquarters this week.   These workers are not happy with the contract

The New Dealers’ War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the War Within World War   II. By Thomas Fleming. (Basic Books: April 2001) $24.50.  Imagine the following scenario: The economy is in bad shape after years of poorly conceived policy interventions, and as a result, the general public holds the federal government in disrepute.  Suddenly, an attack by

The economy is officially in the tank, and economists are standing in line to tell policymakers which levers to pull to bring it back to healthy form. Giving advice to political leaders--advice they want to hear--seems to be the way to fame in my profession, with the primary concern that the New York Times  prints your name correctly.  I too have

Foreign policy has overshadowed some serious domestic debates that are due to surface whenever news from Afghanistan recedes. Chief among these issues has to do with the supposed failure of welfare reform and what should be done about it. Heather Boushey most recently broached the topic in an issue brief  for the left-leaning Economic Policy