As we know, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was taken over by the Feds after a bank run. Despite assurances from SVB that they were sound, they obviously failed to understand their precarious situation. Based on SVB’s balance sheet, it was technically insolvent. The regulators shut it down and pondered what to do next. A bank run? How could this happen
Despite all of the supposed safeguards to prevent bank failures, banks still fail. Perhaps the so-called safeguards are causing much of the trouble. Original Article: “Why Do Banks Still
I almost choked when I read Lee Bollinger’s op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal advocating public financial support of the mainstream media. This is the Lee Bollinger who is the president of Columbia University and was recently named deputy chair of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The article says more about the writer and the mainstream
There are lots of ways to kill off a civilization. Wars, politics, economic collapse. But what are the actual mechanics? It might be a useful thing to know whether or not we are killing ourselves off. Ancient Rome is a good place to start. They had an advanced civilization . They had running water, sewers, flush toilets, concrete, roads, bridges,
Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged depicts a world where freedom and free markets are crushed by not-so-well-meaning politicians and bureaucrats. The story is a blueprint for the creation of a command economy where prices, wages, and production are dictated by bureaucratic apparatchiks . Like all regimes seeking autocratic power, the outcome, as she
The California Legislature’s 201–2018 session just ended with an ocean of new laws inflicted upon its citizens. It’s actually difficult to discover how many new laws were passed. There were about 2,100 bills passed and signed by the governor, but many of them were bills supporting things like National Arbor Day or the Ritchie Valens Memorial
Back in 1999, I was in Tanzania relaxing by the pool at my hotel in the Serengeti after a dusty day of wildlife photography. A young attendant approached and informed me that former Tanzanian president Julius Nyrere was one of the most influential men in the world and that world leaders were streaming into Dar es Salaam to pay homage at his
A movement is taking over America’s colleges and universities that rejects classical norms of reason, logic, and scholarship. This anti-intellectual trend is a road to totalitarianism. What now passes for erudition in many liberal arts departments would not qualify as good scholarship using the proven tests of critical thinking. Worse, dissent is
My family moved to California in 1950, part of the post-WWII westward migration. My widowed mother, tired of Boston’s dreary winters, felt the westward pull. My eldest brother, a WWII Navy veteran, had heard good things about San Diego from sailors who had been stationed there during the war. So, California, here we come. I would like to think
Trump’s trade war is not about about being patriotic or protecting American businesses. It is about politics and bad economics. No one wins a trade war; everyone loses. On July 5, 2018, the United States declared war on China. China mobilized and quickly counterattacked the U.S. This war is a trade war which means governments enact tariffs taxes
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.