As Lew Rockwell notes , the US’s printing of Saddam’s money is poignant symbol of the failure of the occupation. Now we learn from the Washington Times that: The administration’s head, L. Paul Bremer, acknowledged yesterday that the decision [to print Saddam dinars] was embarrassing for him, but said there had been no alternative to maintain
Ever since the release of Google+, I’ve been thinking through what Google had to go through to match and improve on Facebook. People think that geekery is all about code but there is serious intellectual work that precedes the code that is just as hard. Google had to figure out what they did wrong with Buzz (as I explained ) but also figure out
Outside links for today The London Independent offers this popular explanation of the Austrian cycle theory --together with a hysterical warning about the dangers of deflation. Eric Schlosser, author of the silly book Fast-Food Nation , is on to something with his account of the underground economy . Hans Sennholz’s classic essay on the topic
As we continue to move stories from the ticker to the blog, here are a number that are worth reading: The Fed Press Release that everyone is talking about For-Profit Colleges Gain Luster CNN’s excellent story on the myth of deflation US Talks of Repudiating Iraqi Debt The Christian Science Monitor Gets it right on Oil Prices
The New York Times runs a story quoting administration officials and economists who say the weaker dollar is good for exports and has no downside because inflation and interest rates are in fine shape. These are the same people who argue that a lot of inflation is better than a little deflation, a notion which Shostak debunks today . Meanwhile,
USA Today : “As part of President Bush’s tax cut bill, Congress has given preliminary approval to using private firms to dun some of the 6.1 million taxpayers with delinquent accounts. Officials say up to $30 billion is going unpaid because the IRS has nobody to ask for it.”
Maybe some investors were naive enough to believe that the money stolen from Wall Street brokerage firms was set to be real compensation for investor losses. The Associated Press reports the inevitable : investors will get nothing, nor should they. But neither should Wall Street be treated as criminal to recommend a stock that subsequently goes
The Justice Department is looking into whether airlines have secretly colluded in increasing fares, according to a story on MSNBC . It seems that most fares went up $10 in anticipation of a four-month suspension of security fees, a move designed to give a break to an industry on the verge of collapse. A 1993 law prevents airlines from giving out
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.
