Introductory

A job seeker may not have the skill set that is worth $7/hour minimum wage. The minimum wage law keeps that individual from being employed.

A defector from the Soviet Union, Yuri Maltsev knows that socialism is not better than communism.Intellectuals love socialism because they imagine themselves holding power. Communism, a utopia created by Marx, was intended to be classless with no money.

Society is built upon each person doing what they do best. Developed economies have very specialized skills. This division of labor allows us each to do what we do best. We can create ourselves.

The Federal Reserve Chairman, Bernanke, calls a fall in purchasing power of the dollar by over 95% stable. Interest rates have been pushed to zero.  Continual inflation is deliberate and designed. Bernanke pretends he knows what he is doing.

You must know basic economics in order to understand historic events. Human Action is the basic book. Economic laws determine the way people cooperate by exchanging property rights, by dividing their labor, and by subjectively calculating prices.

Deposit banking rests on the bank honoring property rights. Loan banking rests on making good loans that will pay off. But when loan banking and deposit banking merged, the temptation to loan out much more than was actually in the bank arose.

Austrian economists differ from mainstream economists mainly in this way: they do not rely on mathematical models, but on understanding what causes success or failure in the real world. Opportunity costs determine the choices people make.

Instead of each person doing all of the work creating what he needs and wants, dividing the labor amongst all of us into specialties is clearly superior by increasing the productivity of labor.