On behalf of all the thousands of consumers of publicly owned, government regulated, monopolistic utility companies from Texas to Oklahoma and Missouri to Maine who lost power over the last week during the ice storm and found their service lacking, I would like to open up the bidding process to competitive companies that will fill the needs of
GoodSearch.com has begun to send out checks to the various charities that have been designated by individuals utilizing their search engine. The Mises Institute blew away the minimum threshold so the check is in the mail. Please continue to support LVMI through GoodSearch since “there’s no reason not
Gary “plastics, baby, plastics!” North discusses George Bailey’s Road to Monetary Perdition where “the buffalo gals have come out at night to vote by the light of the moon.” In Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter! , North describes the reasons for its importance, the message of forgiveness, and the implications of fractional reserve banking. The Guardian
For as long as I can remember, this country has gotten itself all worked up every four years or so trying to pick just the right person to be in charge of the executive branch. It’s always a mess, and it always turns out the same way: We elect a president, and everything goes to pot. And now I hear we’re going to have to go through this again! We
US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns recently said that Australia should end its wheat export-marketing monopoly. In a statement that proves at least one lawyer does understand economics, he stated: “By the nature of things, monopolies tend to be trade distorting.” We can only wait with bated breath for the US government to call for the end of
The thoughts of Ludwig von Mises will not be completely absent from the American Economic Association’s annual meeting this year. Besides a session on “Buchanan and Hayek on the Constitutional Order” where he may make an appearance, Edmund Phelps of Columbia University has a paper where he begins by discussing Mises’s insight on the economic
The esteemed military historian Martin van Creveld has a trenchant article in the latest issue of The Forward where he suggests President Bush be impeached and put on trial “for misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them”. Dr. van Creveld is mostly
A paper by Ray Fisman and Edward Miguel for the National Bureau for Economic Research postulates that the number of parking tickets that legally-immune foreign diplomats acummulate in NYC and refuse to pay is a great measure of how corrupt their home countries are . The list of violations per diplomat was led by Kuwait, Egypt, Chad, Sudan, and
I posted the following perhaps intelligent, somewhat educational comment in response to a plethora of posts denouncing Chuck Hagel’s stand on the Israeli-Lebanese conflict and his call for a withdrawal of US troops in Iraq within 6 months: Hagel is a real hero. Many of you seem to be lacking an education of what conservatism really is and have no
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.