Some U.S. home builders are facing one of the many disagreeable side-effects of the military occupation of Iraq—higher costs of lumber. In a lumber market where shortages were already appearing, the Defense Logistics Agency suddenly ordered more than 20 million square-feet of plywood sheeting for construction in Iraq. Markets for plywood and its
In the past half century, as unions in the U.S. workforce have seen their numbers dwindling, especially within private companies, American university faculties have been a virtual “amen chorus” for organized labor. According to those denizens of higher education, labor unions can do no wrong, as they “fight” for the “rights of working people.”
As of this writing, the death toll from the south Asian tsunami has reached 120,000, with concerns that disease may claim tens of thousands more. The countries affected include some of the poorest in the world, and as the tragedy unfolds, the economic loss promises to be devastating. Many have noticed that poorer nations are more severely affected
Introduction The Independence of Capital Productivity “Capital Workers” Independent Productivity in Nature Labor’s Income Share Binary Economics on Savings and Consumption “Sterile” Savings Binary Economics and Say’s Law The “General Theory” Diagram Binary Economics, Property Rights, and Freedom Conclusion References Notes Binary economics is a
Entrepreneurs are in a danger zone when their activities are incomprehensible to the general public. Profits that appear without obvious explanation are suspect, and the entrepreneur is likely to find public hostility accompanying the suspicion. Entrepreneurs who assemble physical objects may find their activities transparent enough to avoid the
Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836), a French philosopher and economist, is worthy of attention as a contributor to French liberal thought in the tradition of Condillac. Tracy’s deductive methodology, his liberal approach to governmental affairs, and his subjectivism qualify him as a proto-Austrian economist who enjoyed considerable
The final flight of the space-shuttle program, in progress as this is written, has prompted a number of retrospectives on the program’s costs and benefits. Saturday’s Wall Street Journal reported that the price tag on the US space-shuttle program has been difficult to pin down. One NASA estimate — on the low end, because it does not account for
[Lewis D. Solomon: The Privatization of Space Exploration: Business, Technology, Law, and Policy . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2008, ISBN: 978-1-4128-0759-3, 128 pages. This review originally appeared in Libertarian Papers , 4.1 (2012).] Lewis D. Solomon’s book The Privatization of Space Exploration , now available in a 2012
In response to my recent article, “Was the Space Shuttle Worth It,” I received an interesting e-mail from George S. Giles , who’s written several times for LewRockwell.com, including this on NASA aspirations toward Mars. With his permission, I’m posting parts of it here, edited somewhat for clarity and length. I worked on the Space Transportation
A CNN story reports that a low-salt diet can increase the risk of a fatal heart attack . The study they reference was in the May 4 issue of the mainstream Journal of the American Medical Association . In fact, says Jan A. Staessen, M.D., the senior author of the study and the head of the hypertension laboratory at the University of Leuven, in
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.
