From IEA At this point, the financiers have the politicians in their pocket. No wonder they are openly bragging that happy days are here again (whilst adding insult to injury by telling us that this is God’s work!), even as banks are still on life support, courtesy of the taxpayers who are being robbed blind; meanwhile, the politicians they elect
The governor of the Bank of England actually mentioned the possibility of a Misesian-style reform toward 100% reserve banking, according to the Financial Times . “Or, in an idea that would mean the radical reshaping of the banking system, banks could be forced to match each investment made with funding over an equivalent time period, Mr King
I’ve long had a fascination with Wilhelm Ropke, outstanding economist, tough-minded anti-Keynesian, political decentralist, advocate of free trade and hard money, author of some outstanding works on political and economic liberty, and also moralist and defender of bourgeois culture. We have a nice collection of his work online and in the store .
Whenever I give talks on IP, I use the now-common example of fashion as an industry that is super-profitable, super-competitive, super-innovative very fast moving and yet is not governed by the IP, which is to say that it lives and thrives in a free market. But I’ve variously pointed out too that if IP were suddenly available, we could fully
p>San Fransisco’s push for low-flush toilets has created a serious problem. There is not enough water flowing through the system, and so the back up has created a gigantic, city-wide stink. This can be fixed but only by pouring massive, unthinkable amounts of bleach into the sewer system, a prospect that has many people very alarmed. It’s the old
I can add two more items to the ways in which government is unraveling civilization . 1) The bans and regulatory restrictions on pesticides are now bringing back the friggin’ stink bug , and 2) The EU is actually threatening to shut down air travel if airlines don’t carbon trade. Government isn’t taking us out of a state of nature; it is forcing
The creator of Gillgan’s Island, Sherwood Schwartz, died last week, and the Washington Post asked Paul Cantor for his own interpretation of the television series, since Professor Cantor had written an entire book on the subject. The result is hilarious and interesting. Substitute the word Democracy for Freedom and we are getting
Here is a huge piece in City Journal by Guy Sorman, the ostensible purpose of which is to herald the triumph of markets over socialism. He tells us that economics teaches this. Fair enough. But once you get into the article, you will find support for pollution trading permits, US imperial patrol of seas, central banking, bailouts of failing banks,
On this thread, someone said that “If we fail to recognize intellectual property, we permanently relegate ourselves to the prehuman branch of the animal kingdom – capable of dealing only with the concrete with no capacity for abstraction.” I was just thinking about this. Animals are largely incapable of using non-scarce goods like information,
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.
