In the midst of a global recession, Sweden has recorded a 6.9% year-on-year increase in GDP last quarter, and unemployment is falling. Unusual facts : the central bank has been raising rates and the government has been cutting taxes for all groups including the very
Government is constrained only by the inflation it can create by over-spending, but its ability to spend is numerically unlimited. — Pavlina R. Tcherneva, Assistant Professor, Franklin and Marshall College The dollars are nothing more than data entry on the Fed’s computer. They have no other existence. And it has no impact on the government’s
Nina Paley is not only a famed artist and producer, having produced Sita Sings the Blues , the movie that is being called the most widely available film in history ( review ). She is also a one-woman warrior against copyright, leading first by example and then through patient explanation to the world art community via the website she runs with her
Sudha Shenoy (1943-2008) was a legendary figure in the history of the Austrian School. Her father, B.R. Shenoy, was practically the only libertarian in India in his day. His daughter, Sudha, was a student of Hayek and Rothbard and went on to teach in Australia, with a specialization in development economics. She inspired many students with her
I was just at the veterinarian’s office with a puppy, getting shots for the pooch and generally checking his health, dealing with fleas, and looking into this issue and that. The doctor spent quite the time with me and the dog, gave us free stuff, administered various shots, and helped in many ways. As we explored various options, he mentioned the
George Will notes (in what is actually an outstanding column on the drug war): In “Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson,” historian David S. Reynolds writes that in 1820, Americans spent on liquor a sum larger than the federal government’s budget. By the mid-1820s, annual per capita consumption of absolute alcohol reached seven gallons,
For those who feel compelled to document progress in our times, here is a point to add. The music played when you are on hold for tech support has generally improved in recent years. It’s not perfect by a long stretch but it is getting there. For those too young to remember the bad old days, I have one word for you: trumpets. It was a cool jazz
Hayek seems like the man of the day. Barron’s offers an excellent commentary by Thomas G. Donlan, in which he recounts Hayek’s stunning Nobel lecture, which, by the way, the Institute has newly in print . When Friedrich Hayek won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1974, he embarrassed many economists by noting their failures. Speaking in the midst
The New York Times is reporting that the Bush administration is giving away jobs to people who are Bush fanatics and dedicated Republican loyalists, while striking people off the list who are not. I know this isn’t news, but when you consider that the whole ghastly apparatus of the civil service and its appointed division was created by the
It’s Krugman’s lastest manifesto in the NYTMag . It’s all here: how economists were in love with capitalism before the Great Depression (?), how Keynes was the only one who saw the failures of laissez-faire (!), how economists fell in love again with markets in recent years (!!), and how the popping bubble has startled them whereas the great
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.
