Last week the FOMC announced that it would continue unchanged its policies of open-ended quantitative easing to the tune of $85 billion per month and targeting a zero interest rate for as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5 percent and (CPI) inflation does not exceed 2.5 percent. The FOMC polices should thrill Scott Sumner , a leader
Although I am not a fan of the flat tax, this short video is well worth viewing. The look on President Obama’s face is priceless as pediatric neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson criticizes the punitive thrust of progressive income taxation at the National Prayer Breakfast. Of course the so-called “flat tax” is not really a flat tax at all because it
While Keynesians continue to sing that lame old song about insufficient aggregate demand stimulus and the horrors of austerity and “market” monetarists prattle on about deficient growth in nominal GDP , the signs of an incipient asset bubble become more evident every day. In fact it would not be overstating the case to say that the Fed is
As if any more evidence were needed (see my CB post earlier this week) that the Fed has succeeded, either through ignorance or design, in igniting new asset bubbles throughout the economy, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City just released a survey of bankers that confirms a continuing rise in U.S. farmland prices. The following chart shows the
France’s state auditing bureau, Cour des Comptes , informed the French government that it was “dreaming” in forecasting that the French economy would grow this year by 0.8 percent, which would enable it to meet its budget deficit target of 3 percent of GDP. The bureau told French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault that a growth rate of 0.3 percent
According to mainstream economics textbooks, one of the primary functions of money is to measure the value of goods and services exchanged on the market. A typical statement of this view is given by Frederic Mishkin in his textbook on money and banking. “[M]oney ... is used to measure value in the economy,” he claims. “We measure the value of
This article is also available as an Audio Mises Daily One of the worst effects of modern Keynesian economics is that its total spending (“aggregate demand”) approach to output and employment provides a pseudo-scientific justification for the central error of mercantilism — an error that dates back to the sixteenth century. According to this
This year Tax Freedom Day falls on April 22 , three days later than last year. By that date, Americans will have earned sufficient income to pay the $3.0 trillion and $1.5 trillion they will be forced to pay this year in federal and state taxes, respectively. The total of $4.5 exceeds the amount they will spend this year on food, clothing, and
Pete Boettke has an interesting post arguing that Rothbard’s interpretation of Mises’s method although currently more popular is inferior to that of Fritz Machlup, a student of Mises’s in Vienna who later became a prominent member of the U.S. economics profession. Boettke also argues that the Rothbard’s interpretation will eventually be
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.
