The Free Market 25, no. 6 (June 2007) In response to mounting controversy over the student loan industry, the House passed the Student Loan Sunshine Act by a large margin (414–3). The Act would require lenders to disclose any financial relationships they have with educational institutions, and it would prohibit certain questionable activities,
The Free Market 26, no. 9 (September 2008) The Paulson bailout failed in the House. It wasn’t a death blow to the plan, but it should have been. This wasn’t an economic plan: it was a heist. It will go down as The Great Bank Robbery of 2008. The economics behind it were nonsense, but we are naïve if we spend much time even considering the
The Free Market 27, no. 4 (April 2009) In a March 11 Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan tried to exonerate himself from the housing boom and bust. Even though more and more analysts are realizing that Greenspan’s low interest rates fueled the bubble, the ex-maestro himself uses statistics to defend his
Everyone knows that the unemployment situation is very bad, but the official figures (not surprisingly) understate the problem. In this article I’ll outline the severity of the stalled labor market, and explain some of the major causes. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the official civilian unemployment rate in February was 8.9
The Free Market 29, no. 6 (June 2011) The debate over the federal-government debt ceiling dominated the Spring. Treasury Secretary Geithner sent a letter to Congress explaining that the statutory debt limit would be reached around May 16, and therefore Geithner would implement “extraordinary measures” to postpone the actual crisis point. As in
Volume 4, No. 1 (Spring 2001) Ingo Pellengahr’s doctoral dissertation, The Austrian Subjectivist Theory of Interest , focuses on one small aspect of these ongoing debates. He traces the development and evolution of what is generally referred to as the (pure) time preference theory ( PTPT ) of interest. The PTPT is historically associated
Volume 9, No. 2 (Summer 2006) The standard view of the socialist calculation debate is that Mises and Hayek at best demonstrated the practical impossibility of socialist economy, but that the mathematical solution of economists such as Dickinson showed that “in principle” planners could achieve a rational use of resources without private
The Free Market 24, no. 9 (September 2004) With the recent rate hike, the mainstream press obediently parrots the macroeconomic analysis offered by our friendly central planners at the Federal Reserve. The average citizen knows that he or she is not nearly smart enough to understand the complex interrelationships of various price indices, yield
The Free Market 26, no. 1 (January 2005) On October 4, 2004, the privately funded SpaceShip-One climbed to an altitude of over 70 miles, clinching the $10 million “X Prize.” Many analysts were excited by the prospects for commercial space travel, and the day when orbital or even interplanetary flights would be affordable for the average
The Free Market 26, no. 7 (July 2005) The Bush administration has wrapped up yet another big campaign to bolster support for its Social Security proposal. The latest development is Bush’s suggestion to index benefits for wealthy retirees to prices (rather than wages), which is effectively a cut in promised benefits. The proposal disappointed
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.
