Mises Search

In consecutive issues of  The Freeman , Richard Timberlake has contributed an interesting trilogy of articles advancing a monetarist critique of the conduct of U.S. monetary policy during the 1920s and 1930s.  In the first of these articles, Timberlake disputes the late Murray Rothbard’s “Austrian” account of the boom-bust cycle of the 1920s and

Capitalism breathes through those loopholes . ~Ludwig von Mises I. Introduction A little noted aspect of the media brouhaha that erupted in the wake of Amazon’s reneging on its deal to locate part of its headquarters in New York City was that almost all participants, pro or con, routinely referred to the tax breaks included in the deal as

In the last decade or so, a handful of Austrian economists have been aggressively promoting a strange story of the postwar development of the Misesian tradition.  In their telling, Friedrich Hayek and Israel Kirzner were busily developing Mises’s approach to economic theory and method when Murray Rothbard showed up and shunted the methodological

Well, it’s official. Figures released by the Fed   last week indicate that the total net worth of U.S. households has set an all time record in 2013 in terms of both nominal and constant dollars. In 2013 alone , total net worth climbed by $10 trillion from $70.86 to $80.66 trillion, the largest annual increase in household wealth in U.S history.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. (Mahatma Gandhi) Final victory draws ever nearer for Austrian economics. Over the weekend, the New York Times– with its intellectual cachet rapidly waning and its finances in parlous straits–ran a tedious and rambling hit piece on Rand Paul. The article went out of

Don Printz, MD writes: Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has just signed an executive order enforcing the “price gouging” rule for propane during the cold emergency. That’ll certainly encourage new suppliers to enter the market. I remember when some entrepreneurs brought a big supply of drinking water to Charleston, SC, for $5/gallon (usually about $1)

Peter G. Klein responds to a recent NPR story by Uri Berliner entitled “Coffee Futures: The Highs And Lows Of A Cup Of Joe”. Dr. Klein explains how a free market in coffee commodities would function. Klein is the Mises Institute’s Executive Director and Carl Menger Research

Paul Singer is the manager of the $23 billion Elliott Management hedge fund. In a recent letter to investors in the fund, he expressed bearish sentiments on bitcoin, while remaining bullish on gold despite its recent fall in price. Wrote Singer: There is no more reason to believe that bitcoin will stand the test of time than that governments will

In his post a few days ago entitled “ Don’t Ask George to Dance ,” Bob Murphy referred to George Selgin’s “pugnacity” in denying that he is an Austrian. Now neither George’s pugnacity, nor his quintillionth public profession of his non-Austrianism, is sufficiently interesting to warrant comment. What does deserve comment, however, is George’s less

George Selgin responded to my earlier post. The substance of his response is captured in the following passage   According to Joe Salerno , the implication of the first of these passages is “that those of us who pursue a research program within the praxeological paradigm continually sweat and fret about using terms or formulating concepts in