Reading the July 2009 Government Accountability Office report sparks about as much excitement as reading last month’s headlines, yet I can crack a smile at its earnest concern. GAO is adding the US Postal Service’s (USPS) financial condition to the list of high-risk areas needing attention by Congress and the executive branch to achieve
A hallmark of state failure is its incapacity to predict the market’s response to the policies it puts forth. Indeed, on many levels the state is powerless to change the market’s ends, instead only serving to redirect its means. Credit-card legislation passed last December sets forth a glut of regulations governing the ways in which credit-card
Property is that beautiful foundation from which libertarians approach conflicts. Accepting that the rights to property come through the rights of original homesteading, appropriation, and exchange eliminates the need to question motives or intentions in action. Without defined property rights, the public is left squabbling for some other rubric
One pernicious idea radiating throughout political circles is that advertising is a waste of resources. Undersized minds believe that deep within the inefficiencies of competition and capitalism rests needless spending on marketing to consumers. Why is it that otherwise intelligent individuals rely on such callous influences to pervert their
Science Daily recently reported on a study that finds “Preserving just 4 percent of the ocean could protect crucial habitat for the vast majority of marine mammal species, from sea otters to blue whales.” The article, based on the research at Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (as published in the The Proceedings
Every so often a book comes along that truly makes you appreciate writing as a subject; one that truly captures the imagery that we see and feel in our lives when we so often lack the time for reflection. Wĭthûr Wē is such a book. Yet, such a recommendation doesn’t quite do it justice because its beautiful imagery is only a backdrop for a rich
“someone’s ‘reputation’ is not and cannot be ‘owned’ by him, since it is purely a function of the subjective feelings and attitudes held by other people. But since no one can ever truly ‘own’ the mind and attitude of another, this means that no one can literally have a property right in his ‘reputation.’ A person’s reputation fluctuates all the
A 10% levy on tanning is set to transpire soon in an attempt to feed the federal government an estimated 2.7 billion in, supposedly, needed funding. The comedy is of course in their faulty economics. The bill differentiates between tanning salons and fitness centers that offer tanning packages. Tanning salons, like that of Sun Tan City or Solar
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.