Mises Search

This issue of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics features articles that make important contributions to monetary theory and policy. Jeffrey Herbener and David Rapp draw out the implications of Mises’s theory of monetary calculation for the purchase or sale of business assets, particularly entire business firms. Hossein Askari and

Neocon political commentator, comedian, actor and “economist,” Ben Stein ridicules Donald Trump  for his recent forecast of a “a very massive recession soon” in the US while labeling Trump’s views on the economy as ”sheer idiocy.” Stein played an economics teacher in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , but has no advanced degree in economics.

A few days before the last FOMC meeting The Wall Street Journal   reported  on the Fed’s hand wringing over its inability to identify the “natural rate of interest” and explain its recent movements. According to the report, the Fed uses the “mysterious natural rate” to guide its decisions in setting the target for the fed funds rate. Modern

With Brexit, the Brits liberated themselves from the massive, overweening and despotic EU superstate. In its wake, investors may now begin to liberate their cash from government-issued debt by hoarding it in private vaults.   The volume of sovereign debt yielding a negative return swelled to over $10 trillion as a result of Brexit, with negative

Citing grave concerns that “this banknote could facilitate illicit activities,” those desperate inflationists intrepid crime fighters at the ECB have announced that production of the 500-euro note--the so-called “Bin Laden note”--will cease at the end of  2018.  To allay public suspicion that this  despotic measure portends the beginning of

Russ Roberts’ podcast interview  with Larry White is a fascinating listen. White is one of the leading experts (along with Roger Garrison and Gerry O’Driscoll) on Hayek’s monetary thought. Roberts has developed into an outstanding interviewer, asking penetrating questions and making timely comments but allowing the interviewee to shine. And shine

It took a heroic local news anchor from Fargo, North Dakota to expose the fact that crony capitalists have banded together in a “nonprofit” foundation to bribe the political classes of small U.S. cities to support and promote “refugee resettlement” in their cities. The Partnership for a New American Economy , whose board includes the likes of

During the period 1980s and 1990s, the desirability of the “independence from politics” of central banks became almost an article of faith among mainstream macroeconomists and those operating in financial markets. This development was driven by two factors: academic research on central banking; and the personality cults that grew up around the two

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF, revealed that it was a  ”a bit of a surprise” that she was not informed in advance of the Swiss National Bank’s decision to dissolve the the inflationary peg with the euro.  Of course, the modus operandi of central banks is to keep the public in the dark about their imminent changes in policy or to

There has been much hand wringing among popular blogger-economists in response to the breaking of the Euro peg by the SNB. Tyler Cowen , Paul Krugman , and Scott Sumner  all lament the loss of “credibility” by the SNB in the wake of its sudden change of policy regime and they darkly hint at dire consequences for the Swiss economy. But the problem