It was a familiar time. It was a time of a Republican administration waging an unpopular war. It was a war some Democrats said they opposed but seemed to do very little to stop. Inflation was starting to become a problem. America’s allies thought our president’s economic and political polices were flawed and they were often ridiculed.
Did you hear the recent giant sigh of collective relief from the securities industry? It was the sound of those securities professionals who, for now, dodged a regulatory bullet. Regulation National Market System’s June 29th trade-through rule mandate had become a dead letter. Indeed, after months of confusing Reg NMS instructions from the staff
[An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Ron Jennings, is available for download .] It’s the spending, stupid! When was the last time you heard Senator Obama or Senator McCain give a speech on the bloated public sector? Did Senator Clinton, in her recently concluded presidential bid, ever scold voters who constantly want the government to
One of the projects that President Obama’s close to trillion dollar stimulus package is designed to pay for will be a much delayed subway line in New York City. The line has been authorized and paid for by taxpayers time and again through bond issues and federal aid over more than 60 years. Yet the line is years away because of cost overruns and
“Weiner is the rule, not the exception, of American politics.” The farcical tragedy of Anthony Weiner is more than a sex scandal or the story of an arrogant politician who was finally exposed. Weiner is part of a flawed system that leads to the frequent reelection of career politicians who believe that government will solve every problem. He is
Our grandparents believed in the value of thrift, but many of their grandchildren don’t. That’s because cultural and economic values have changed dramatically over the last generations as political and media elites have convinced many Americans that saving is passé. So today, under the influence of Keynesian economists who champion government
End America’s central bank because it caused the crashes of 2008, 1987, and 1929 and will blunder again. That’s what many critics are saying about the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), which turns 100 on December 23. They note that on the Fed’s watch America has endured numerous bubbles, crashes, and inflationary cycles that have greatly devalued
Over the past 80 years or so governments have been expected to provide more and more social services. That means bigger and bigger bills for the taxpayers of this generation and generations unborn. Since governments almost constantly run in the red, they often resemble cocaine addicts desperately looking for the next fix. The fix, in the case of
Republicans are today almost always fervent supporters of big military budgets and an interventionist foreign policy. But many Republicans forget a period before and after World War II when dozens of Republican lawmakers were against military alliances and a save-the-world American foreign policy. They ignore a time when many of their predecessors
As the New York City subway system continues to deteriorate, this word is verboten by political and media elites here: Privatization. Even the supposed friends of private enterprise, the Manhattan Institute, don’t argue for the abolition of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the state agency that has run the subways since the late
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.
