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The Federal Reserve system, including its twelve regional district banks that issue our US currency, is a creature of Congress, which passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 to create our central bank. The Fed is neither part of the executive branch of the federal government, nor is it an independent federal agency within the government, although

Utility bills—for electricity, natural gas, water, and garbage—have by long-standing tradition been based on customer usage, measured in kilowatt-hours of electricity, therms or Btu of natural gas, hundred cubic feet of water, or number of garbage cans. Every residence and business has electric, gas, and water meters that measure utility usage.

We expect the lights to come on when we flip a switch, unconcerned with how the electricity is produced or how it reaches our homes. We are aware of telephone poles, wires overhead, and transmission towers, solar panels, and windmills across the countryside. But as long as we pay our electric bills, we trust electric utilities to provide our power

US fiscal realities are well known. Total federal debt outstanding has now reached $34 trillion, up from $98 billion in 1981, $5.67 trillion in 2000, $13.56 trillion in 2010, and $26.95 trillion in 2020. And at 120 percent of the US economy’s productive capacity (gross domestic product), the federal debt matches that at the end of World War II.

Stephen Anderson, in his Mises Wire essays of  February 1 (“Are Bankruptcies of Some US States in the Future?”) and  February 23 (“US States Have a Long History of Defaulting”), worries that some US states may be on the precipice of bankruptcy. While a potential problem—especially in light of high debt levels among federal government, businesses,

Today’s US fiscal predicament includes unprecedentedly high federal spending financed by inadequate tax revenue and high federal budget deficits. There is a lack of sufficient buyers of US Treasury debt. Rating agencies have recently downgraded the US debt, and entitlement benefits are forecast to outstrip their trust funds in a few years. How

Polls consistently show that climate change is a leading issue for young Americans. Millennials and Generation Z have been coached on climate arguments—and in most cases outright climate alarmism—in school and by the media, leaving them convinced that carbon-based energy has ruined their future on the planet. It appears that children are being

Dorothy and her companions in the movie The Wizard of Oz feared lions and tigers and bears as they journeyed through the woods to visit the wizard. But real people living today might fear frighteningly large numbers more than large wild animals. We live today with some very large numbers that contain many zeros and commas, figures so large that

Financial statements of the US Federal Reserve, which consists of the board of governors in Washington and twelve district reserve banks across the country, indicate that the consolidated system has generated both capital and operating losses for the past couple of years. The Fed was created in 1913 to issue and circulate an “elastic currency”

Mises Wire contributor Kevin Van Elswyk, in his November 29 article “Student Loans: The Continuing Crisis That Is Getting Worse,” nicely summarizes the current confusion and scandal of federal student loan programs, which at this point appear a miasma that will likely turn into an outright student grant program as more and more of these loan