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.

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Americans regularly complain about wait times to obtain medical appointments, especially with primary care physicians and certain specialists. Waiting several weeks or a couple of months for an appointment is not uncommon, which can sound to Americans like purported wait times in Canada and other countries with socialized medicine. Economics and Third-Party Intervention Explain Long Waits Economic analysis of medical education explains what is behind the long wait times, which are not incidental or random. Beyond understanding the economics of medical education, however, well-meaning third-party attempts to overrule the law of supply and demand to “fix” the wait-time problem have only exacerbated it. As Alexander Pope first declared in the early 18th century: a

Ryan McMaken makes a convincing case on Mises Wire for abolishing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). But DHS is not the only executive branch cabinet department that has been occasionally mentioned as a candidate for elimination. Aside from the US cabinet departments of State, Treasury, and Defense that date back to the earliest years of the nation, the names of other departments—Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs—do not typically roll off the tips of Americans’ tongues. Many of these departments and agencies could easily be considered candidates for elimination or consolidation.One embarrassingly unforgettable example

A quick internet search for “climate anxiety,” which is also often referred to as “eco-anxiety,” “eco-grief,” or “climate doom,” produces numerous links to the psychological and psychiatric literature on the topic. The Program on Climate Change Communication within the Yale School of the Environment appears to be a major contributor to this research. Mental health professionals and mass trauma researchers report seeing more patients with symptoms of this anxiety, but they’re not always sure how to treat it.Climate Anxiety Isn’t a Medical DiagnosisReputable medical establishments such as the Cleveland Clinic clarify that, although this psychological condition isn’t a medical diagnosis, it is a commonly-accepted popular term used to describe a collection of symptoms

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s decisive victory over Kamala Harris on November 5, millions of American women—especially those of Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, currently aged from 12 to 27—are despondent and dismayed that Democrats’ campaign focus on abortion policy did not convince more voters to choose Harris. They are convinced that their “my body, my choice” freedom has been stolen from them by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and that they may now be unable to obtain abortion on-demand everywhere across the nation.The Democrats’ crude, single-theme campaign focus on abortion completely ignored the reality that the Dobbs decision relegated abortion policy back to the fifty states—where it had

There is plenty of commentary today about continuing large annual US federal budget deficits and the large federal debt that keeps mounting as a result of these relentless deficits. The budget deficit for federal fiscal year 2024 clocked in at $1.8 trillion, representing about 5 percent of US GDP, and the federal debt is now $35.5 trillion, approximately 100 percent of GDP.The Congressional Budget Office projects that annual budget deficits and the outstanding debt are on a trajectory to rise further into the indefinite future at current taxation and spending levels. The US Congress has the “power of the purse,” representing its constituents and designated by the Constitution as the body responsible for legislation governing federal taxation and

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.

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Seemingly defying logic and common sense, many fashionistas vie to pay $12,000 (and even up to as much as $100,000 for versions made of exotic skins such as snake or alligator), for a women’s leather purse known as the “Birkin bag.” Handmade by the French firm Hermes, and named after British pop star Jane Birkin, who popularized the bag several decades ago, these bags today grace the arms of celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian.Anna Shnaidman nicely explains this backstory in her Mises Wire contribution “The Secret Economic Theory Behind the $100,000 Birkin Bag.” As she explains, both Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises revealed why prices of highly desirable products like Birkin bags can reach such lofty levels.Not only do Birkin bags fetch these

Immigration, particularly by illegal aliens at the southern US border, is a contentious issue in 21st century America. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has expressed concern about immigration’s probable impact on the unemployment rate. Homebuyers and renters are concerned about its impact on house prices and rents. Law enforcement questions its impact on crime rates. School districts are concerned about increased immigrant student enrollment and their academic progress. And Americans generally are concerned about immigration-related issues such as birthright citizenship and immigrant assimilation into the nation’s culture.Now comes a lawsuit contending that President Biden’s immigration executive orders, signed on his first day in office in 2021, violated

P.T. Barnum purportedly proclaimed that “There’s a sucker born every minute”, though there is no proof that he actually said it. Whether true in Barnum’s time or in today’s social-media era, however, the phrase describes those gullible enough to believe anything, even when their better judgment (if they possess any of that) tells them otherwise.Now comes a story about TikTok, where 40 percent of young adults get their news these days. Recent news sources report TikTok videos portraying people believing they could get “free” cash from Chase Bank ATMs. These videos showed people depositing checks for large sums of money at Chase ATMs, and then making withdrawals for smaller yet substantial amounts, leading them to believe they had discovered a computer glitch to

P.T. Barnum purportedly proclaimed that “There’s a sucker born every minute”, though there is no proof that he actually said it. Whether true in Barnum’s time or in today’s social-media era, however, the phrase describes those gullible enough to believe anything, even when their better judgment (if they possess any of that) tells them otherwise.Now comes a story about TikTok, where 40 percent of young adults get their news these days. Recent news sources report TikTok videos portraying people believing they could get “free” cash from Chase Bank ATMs. These videos showed people depositing checks for large sums of money at Chase ATMs, and then making withdrawals for smaller yet substantial amounts, leading them to believe they had discovered a computer glitch to

Disclaimer: The following is a parody of a “leaked” transcript of a recent telephone conversation between Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen.Powell (answering phone): Powell here.Yellen: Jay, how you doing, Janet here, been meaning to call you one of these days.Powell: What’s on your mind over there at Treasury?Yellen: Well, I see that you’re lowering interest rates, so I just wanted to tell you that’s great news for us over here at Treasury. We’re always looking for ways to save money, what with all this debt we’re trying to manage and pay interest on. When I was in your job, we were able to keep interest rates historically low, barely above zero, and no one much talked about the size of the federal debt or paying

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.

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Conventional wisdom has it that the Federal Reserve system (the “Fed”) and the US Treasury Department are two separate entities. Congress created the Fed in 1913 as a legally and financially independent federal agency, privately owned by its member banks, with no funding from the federal budget. The US Treasury, on the other hand, is an Executive-branch cabinet-level department reporting directly to the President, with funding appropriated in the federal budget.Conventional wisdom also tells us that the Fed’s monetary policy (managing the money supply and interest rates, directed by the Fed’s Chair and Board of Governors) is separate from Treasury’s fiscal policy (collecting taxes and implementing federal spending) at the behest of Congress and the Executive

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.

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No American politician running for office wants to talk about taxes—unless, of course, it’s to promise a tax cut. No Misesian views taxes with anything but suspicion, and Mises himself held some principled views on taxes:Taxes are necessary. But the system of discriminatory taxation universally accepted under the misleading name of progressive taxation of income and inheritance is not a mode of taxation. It is rather a mode of disguised expropriation of the successful capitalists and entrepreneurs.It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering

Imagine an American college or university president making the following public statement:“I regret that my institution, along with many others, has contributed to burdensome federal student loan debt and to rising college tuition levels, allowing our institutions to profit from the existence of student loan monies. At the same time, we have failed to offer our students adequate skills and knowledge required to compete in today’s world.”If collegiate presidents struggled with questions about antisemitism on their campuses — as they did during recent Congressional testimony — they would surely be unable to speak frankly on student loan burdens, high and rising tuition levels, institutional profiteering from student loans, and whether students benefit academically

Since the 1930s New Deal and the 1960s Great Society, the US federal budget has shifted from providing pubic goods to distributing transfers (in the form of both spending and lending) to favored groups, a continually metastasizing shift that has now created a federal budgetary and debt crisis. It has also allowed politicians to perfect the fine art of buying votes by awarding federal transfers to select voter groups as a means to winning elections.What are Public Goods and Who Pays for Them?Genuine “public goods” are those that are simultaneously “non-excludable” (available to all), and are “non-rival” (can be enjoyed over and over again by anyone without diminishing the benefits they deliver to others). Examples include national defense, police protection and

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.

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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.

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Americans’ daily lives are governed by both laws and regulations, the former enacted by Congress and the latter issued by the numerous regulatory agencies in the federal government’s executive branch. These agencies are collectively known as the administration state, the deep state, or pejoratively, “the swamp.”Few Americans realize the extent of federal regulations and the costs they impose on everyone. The United States Constitution makes no mention of regulatory agencies, nor did the Founders ever anticipate the growth of what might be considered the fourth branch of the federal government.Regulatory growth, moreover, has flourished with major bursts of government statutory expansion during the 1930s’ New Deal, 1960s’ Great Society, mid-2000s’ financial crisis,

Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1960), an Austrian political economist who emigrated to the United States in 1932 to become a professor at Harvard University, is known for his theories on business cycles and entrepreneurship.He is perhaps best known for advancing the concept of “creative destruction,” which he defined as the natural process of business firms failing at some point, freeing up resources (land, labor, and capital) that can then become more productive in some other use under different management who can bring innovation to manufacturing processes.Creative Destruction in US Higher EducationToday, Schumpeter’s creative destruction occurs in real time among start-up firms in many industries, especially technology. The phenomenon is not confined to technology,

One hears little today of the US “twin deficits,” a phrase familiar during the 1980s when the US had consistently run both federal budget deficits and international trade deficits. Economists hypothesized at that time that there was a theoretical and/or empirical relationship assuring the two deficits’ increasing or decreasing together.How Do Federal Budget Deficits Arise?Annual federal budget deficits exist whenever federal spending exceeds annual tax revenue. The US has consistently run these deficits in most of the postwar period, except during the Clinton administration in the 1990s. Fiscal year 2001 was the last time the US federal budget was in surplus.The fiscal year 2023 budget deficit was $1.7 trillion, with tax revenue at $4.4 trillion and federal

Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito

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Banks are highly regulated businesses, as expected of entities to which we entrust our money, and from which we may expect to borrow someday to buy a home or start a business. Bankers interact with regulators daily. Investors wishing to establish a bank must first obtain capital pledges from future shareowners and apply for a bank charter from either federal or state government regulators. Once in business, a bank is overseen by one or more of the following state and federal regulators: a state banking commission if a state-chartered bank, Office of the Controller of the Currency if federally-chartered, the Federal Reserve if a member of that system and/or a one-bank holding company, National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) if a credit union, Federal Deposit

Utility bills—for electricity, natural gas, water, and garbage—have by long-standing tradition been based on customer usage, measured in kilowatt-hours of electricity, therms or Btu of natural gas, hundred cubic feet of water, or number of garbage cans. Every residence and business has electric, gas, and water meters that measure utility usage.But changes are afoot in the utility business as federal and state governments urge Americans to convert from fossil fuels to electricity for home heating, appliances, and transportation. From this transition will undoubtedly follow changes in utility rate-setting models.Fixed Fees Coupled with Usage-Based Electricity RatesSome electric utilities currently charge customers a flat, fixed fee as well as usage-based charges,

The Federal Reserve system, including its twelve regional district banks that issue our US currency, is a creature of Congress, which passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 to create our central bank. The Fed is neither part of the executive branch of the federal government, nor is it an independent federal agency within the government, although members of the Fed’s Board of Governors are appointed by the Presidential and confirmed by Congress.The Fed’s unique independence has two features: 1) the regional Federal Reserve district banks are privately owned by their member commercial banks, and 2) the FR system receives no funding through the federal government budget. Thus, the Fed is arguably the most independent of the world’s central banks, a uniquely designed

President Biden needs an economics lesson. Demonstrating his ignorance of economics, his recent State of the Union speech regaled us with a laundry list of legal business pricing strategies that he wants to see restricted or banned by federal agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). These pricing strategies include what Biden pejoratively calls “junk fees”, “shrinkflation”, “greedflation”, “surge pricing”, and “price gouging”. Both American businesses and consumers are targets of Biden’s barbs, as he blames the former for inflation and the latter for their stupid gullibility to businesses’ evil ways.But he fails to understand that successful businesses carefully survey customers’ preferences and behavior

Stephen Anderson, in his Mises Wire essays of February 1 (“Are Bankruptcies of Some US States in the Future?”) and February 23 (“US States Have a Long History of Defaulting”), worries that some US states may be on the precipice of bankruptcy. While a potential problem—especially in light of high debt levels among federal government, businesses, and consumers—possible state bankruptcies and defaults must be clarified before we conclude that state bankruptcies lie ahead.Mr. Anderson is correct that federal bankruptcy law does not allow states to declare bankruptcy. According to the contracts clause of the US Constitution—Article 1, Section 10—states are barred from impairing the obligation of contracts, and the Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean that a state

US fiscal realities are well known. Total federal debt outstanding has now reached $34 trillion, up from $98 billion in 1981, $5.67 trillion in 2000, $13.56 trillion in 2010, and $26.95 trillion in 2020. And at 120 percent of the US economy’s productive capacity (gross domestic product), the federal debt matches that at the end of World War II.
That $34 trillion, when spelled out, is the number thirty-four followed by twelve (count ’em) zeros separated by four commas. So it looks like this, a lot of digits and commas for the human brain to comprehend: $34,000,000,000,000.
These official debt figures do not even include the large unfunded liabilities inherent in the largest federal entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, and several others