Max Borders, program director for the Institute for Humane Studies , writes in TCS in favor of war on Hobbesian grounds: “freedom does not drop like manna from heaven, but is earned drop-for-drop and coin-for-coin by the sacrifices of blood and treasure.” IHS was founded by F.A. Harper who wrote a sweeping defense of peace and liberty in 1951: In
CNN provides a helpful summary of a study by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, ranking states by how much they tax their citizens (NY is #50, Alabama is #3).
The new issue of Markets & Morality (vol. 7, number 1, which is not yet up on the Acton site) features a wonderful piece by Anthony G. Percy (a diocesan priest in Australia) on the unknown economic writings of Pope Pius XII, which have him celebrating commercial initiative, defending finance capital, affirming the right of private ownership,
Joy! Our copy of Benjamin Constant’s Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments (1810) has arrived. This jumped out immediately from the text: During the French Revolution a pretext for war hitherto unknown was invented, that of delivering nations from the yoke of their governments, which we took to be illegitimate and tyrannical. Under
Iowa Electronic Markets are getting more attention this year, and it is hard to imagine that they would be less accurate than the polls. Here is the pricing graph for the winner-take-all presidential match, which today shows the race tightening but Bush still winning. With poll frustration abounding, IEM is getting lots of news attention . Salon
“The Dismal Failure of Central Bank Monetary Policy” ( Asia Times , by Jack Crooks, opens with a quotation from Mises : “Credit expansion is the governments’ foremost tool in their struggle against the free market. In their hands it is the magic wand designed to conjure away the scarcity of capital goods, to lower the rate of interest or to
CNN reports on a Hirsch Organization observation that “if the Dow loses more than 0.5 percent of its value in the month of October before Election Day, then an incumbent president is going to lose his job. The Dow fell 0.52 percent in October. This predictor has been true without exception from 1904 to the present, according to Jeffrey Hirsch,
Dale Steinreich once wrote that Halloween has a “socialist tenor” because “menacing figures arrive at your door uninvited, demand your property, and threaten to perform an unspecified ‘trick’ if you don’t fork over. That’s the way the government works in a nutshell.” And yet, for overall kid excitement, Halloween seems to surpass Christmas, at
An unbelievable quote from an inflationist/Bubblemaniac/Greenspanite/Wall Street Talking Head.....says James Cramer : Imagine a country, a fundamentally prosperous country, where a network of brilliant people decides daily how resources get moved around. These people - not a cabal, but a decently spread-out group - determine the nation’s savings,
The most excellent financial contrarian, Bill Fleckenstein, and his “Fleckisms .” (”Bubblevision” has always been my favorite.) : Arm-Waving: When people take fluffy, subjective information and treat it as fact, to justfy a viewpoint . . . that they want to justify. Bubbleonians: Individuals who believe we are in a perpetual bull market.
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.
