Mises Search

A new program just passed by New York’s state government promises “free tuition” for middle-class students to attend a public college or university in the state. While there are similar programs elsewhere in the US, this is the first to include four-year schools. All of the headlines include some variation of the term free college , which makes

Neil deGrasse Tyson has released a new video aimed at a what he sees as a growing anti-intellectualism problem in the United States. It was released at the same time as the March for Science and many Earth Day demonstrations. He reflects on what he thinks made America great and what’s stalling progress today. Science used to be respected, but

FedEx and UPS recently announced they will not ship the “Ghost Gunner,” a specific digital mill (like a 3D printer, but for metals) marketed as capable of fashioning parts without serial numbers. The present situation is: (1) buying, selling, owning, and using guns without serial numbers is legal, even supposed “assault” rifles; (2) both FedEx and

It seems today’s theme is “we’re winning!” In Ludwig von Mises is Winning , Tho Bishop includes a Google Trends graph comparing the Mises Institute to other organizations. The Mises Institute has been at or near the top for a few years now, according to the Google Trends data, which bases its measure on search interest from people looking up

The last financial crisis and recession drove many to the writings of Austrian economists and the Mises Institute. In fact, I’m in that cohort. And every time the Fed makes headlines, I see this crowd getting larger . Sub-Groups Within the Anti-Fed Party Even with this December 2015 episode, with the media abuzz over a 0.25 rate increase, many are

There’s a new trend among famous economists, from Krugman to Cowen . It was started by Adam Ozimek with a simple question: “Has a single economics study changed your mind on an important issue?”  Economics as a field of study has been branded “too ideological” with warring camps defending dogmatic fortresses as opposed to unbiased, independent

In a previous post , I asked whether Rothbard had been an uncited source in an article on the Panic of 1819 at the NY Fed’s blog. Apparently it received enough traffic to get the attention of the authors, who have since updated their article with a note: Authors’ Update: Murray Rothbard’s  The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies  was an

The perennial promises of free stuff from political candidates are front and center again now that we are ensnared in another US election cycle. The knee-jerk response from some economists and libertarians is “TANSTAAFL!” And of course it’s true that There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, because somebody must bear the costs of the supposedly

Bernie Sanders received some hefty backlash and ridicule on Twitter for this tweet: The blogosphere responded similarly, but with more informed criticism. Megan McArdle and Steven Horwitz , for example, had great points. Many of the responses correctly pointed out that loans like mortgages and auto loans have collateral—if the borrower can’t pay

The Experiment JetBlue has released a video of a social experiment they conducted mid-flight with 150 passengers . A JetBlue spokesman went on the plane’s intercom to announce that everybody on the plane had won a free round-trip flight to anywhere in the world on one condition: the passengers must unanimously decide on one single destination for