The earthquake, tsunami, and lingering nuclear crisis in Japan have devastated that country’s people and their place in the global economy. Can the island nation recover? To see where Japan might go next, we have to look at one of the persistent myths about its recent past — the myth of the lost decades. It is widely thought that Japan is in the
A recent discussion regarding commodity prices on CNBC consisted virtually of sentence-by-sentence errors with respect to macroeconomic theory. Most of the misstatements involve either accidentally or intentionally — I don’t know which — attributing economic and financial market events to various incorrect or misleading cause-and-effect scenarios,
China is in the process of allowing its currency to rise. The reason for this is to address the worsening inflation rates in the country. Allowing the yuan to rise will indeed stop, or slow, inflation, but the way this fix works is not the way that is usually assumed. Neither will the effects of this policy be what most observers assume, i.e.,
“Voting wealth out of the pockets of those who have it is socialism.” [ The Case for Legalizing Capitalism ] Businesspeople, if they are successfully “greedy,” become rich by providing their fellow citizens (i.e., consumers) with things that make them better off. In other words, they have to earn it. But many who espouse that people don’t need
Last week I attended a workshop at the ECB on Global Liquidity. Global Liquidity of course refers to money flowing throughout the world as a result of western central bank money printing—especially Fed printing. I thought it might be beneficial to highlight some insights gained. 1. Attended mostly by central bankers, the group of 40-50 people
Investors are happy today that a deal was reached on “tax cuts for the rich.” Lower taxes definitely help the real economy, but, except for a one-time pop, they can’t raise the stock market. Only money/bank credit can push stock prices higher. See here and here for
Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase (michael.e.feroli@jpmorgan.com), stated that Ron Paul’s idea of returning to the gold standard would result in the exact opposite of what, in reality, it would result in. He implies that under a gold standard, financial markets would be volatile and would be based on manipulation of the money
The former Tunisian police force belonging to President Zine ElAbidine Ben Ali were thugs who enforced the dictator’s rule. They engaged in bullying, intimidation, bribery, and numerous human rights abuses, including contributing to the deaths of more than 100 government protestors in the last couple of months. On Saturday, they too took place in
Freedom Swiss style: Pay a per head tax on your pet or the state will kill it. So much for private property—one’s pet—being one’s own. If pet owners don’t pay the state money, most of which goes into someone else’s pocket, it will come after them. A local Swiss politician described it for what it is: “It’s meant to put pressure on people who don’t
The Free Market 26, no. 5 (May 2008) Punditry is seriously exercised about the worldwide shortage of food, which is real enough, but not an act of nature or a result of market failure. Rather, it stems from the combined failures of government, and with results that are potentially catastrophic. Paul Krugman suggests that this has come about
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.
