August 2 saw Matthew Beller’s Daily Article “The Coming Second Life Business Cycle,” which sounded at first blush like yet another announcement of the coming Rapture. But it described the fiat money (Linden Dollars) of the fiat world of the Internet, known as Second Life. And sure enough, just like the First Life (this one?), the creation of money
In the debate surrounding net neutrality it seems as if someone is finally willing to put their money where their mouth is: Copowi . The founder of this new ISP guarantees that “usage will be unrestricted and traffic will not be shapped, throttled, or prioritized.” And unsurprisingly it will cost potential customers a premium to use these
This non-Austrian has just published a book seeking to elucidate why free voting so regularly emplaces harmful economic policies, or officeholders who favor them. The book is reviewed by Sheldon Richman of the Foundation for Economic Education, whose Web site doesn’t include a blog. So I thought I’d announce the book on this blog (as I’ve been
Subtitled “Why the Free Market Works and Half-Baked Theories Don’t,” this book released Monday by John R. Lott, Jr. had a different subtitle in the first catalog I saw it in (tonight): “Why the Free Market Works and Freaky Theories Don’t.” This second (or, I think, first) version echoes not only what John Lott, the famous gun-control opponent,
1,028 leading economists have taken out an ad in the Wall Street Journal to oppose anti-China trade protectionism now before Congress. They style their effort as a reprise of the 1930 petition sent by a similar number of economists to President Herbert Hoover urging him to veto the Smoot-Hawley Tariff bill, which he went on to sign anyway. Not too
Zheng Xiaoyu, China’s former FDA chief, was executed recently for taking bribes and allowing lethally tainted pharmaceuticals to be sold to his countrymen. Thus far, ten fatalities have been identified in the imbroglio. Zheng makes it eleven. Ironically, and most instructively, Zheng was, 15 to 20 years ago, the zealous reformer who successfully
Well, after a couple of decades of battling copyright extensions , the famed cyberlawyer Lessig has detected the Real Problem: government. In this Economist article , he proposes to improve the “transparency” of government activities through the Internet. Of course, we all wish his enterprise well to expose the venality of individual (most?)
The Science and Public Policy Institute carries this report on a book on global warming for schoolchildren written by Film Director Laurie David and published by Scholastic Publishers, the producers of such staples for American schoolchildren as the Weekly [News] Reader. The book, titled The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming , not only
Here’s a first for me: the female half of a couple seeking to emigrate from the UK to New Zealand is barred from joining her husband who’s already there (Jack Sprat, I suppose) because she’s obese. From this article , one infers that they might let her in if she slims down (if you can pass between the sensors . . .), and who’s to care what she
Thomas Sowell has added yet another book to his oeuvre, and judging from this review in the Economist, it contains yet more of the “common-sense” jewels of wisdom for which he has become known, at least to lovers of freedom and free
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.