Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

Arguments advanced to support a political position often fail to withstand the slightest scrutiny. Rather, they are meant to make an impression on the impressionable—those who lack the context required to make an evaluation—and draw large numbers of the uninformed to one side of a political debate. Such is the case with libertarian economist Bryan Caplan’s recent article in favor of unrestricted immigration, wherein he uses the United Arab Emirates as a supposed...

The Treasury Department posted its latest revenue and spending totals this week, and deficits continue to mount at impressive speed. During October—the first month of the 2025 fiscal year—the federal deficit was more than a quarter of a trillion dollars, coming in at $257.4 billion. Tax revenue in October had totaled $326 billion, but spending totaled $584 billion. Now one month into the new fiscal year, the federal government is on pace to add more than $2 trillion...

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...

In the history of the social sciences, no other field of study has attracted so great a level of hostility as the science of economics. Since the inception of the science, the onslaught against it has been on the rise, extending across individuals and groups. And the outlook for a favorable reception of the science is bleak, given that a significant number of people are incapable of following through the extended chains of reasoning required for comprehending...

The Trump transition team on Wednesday announced that he is nominating South Dakota governor Kristi Noem as the next head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In the coming weeks, we’ll hear a lot about Noem’s personal politics and origins. We’ll also hear about how the DHS is, as the AP puts it, “one of the biggest government agencies that will be integral to his vow to secure the border and carry out a massive deportation operation.”Unfortunately, all this...

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....

This article is adapted from a speech delivered at the Mises Circle in Fort Myers, Florida on November 9, 2024.The answer to the question posed in the title is: Yes and No. Yes, some elections have made a significant difference but in general, no, they have not. There are many reasons why elections generally no longer make much of a difference in terms of the economy. One is that for the past half century the average reelection rate of incumbents in the House of...

The democratic mandate of the incoming Trump administration, along with Republican control of Congress and a confrontation of wills between the President-elect and the Federal Reserve Chairman make ending the Fed a bit less unthinkable. Jerome Powell accurately stated, in a slightly defensive tone, that it is not (currently) lawful for a President to fire a Federal Reserve Chairman. Where some see obstacles others see a challenge, and where Powell...

It has been nearly 14 years since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that the Fed’s emergency quantitative-easing policy, of which the most radical part was buying mortgage-backed securities, was “temporary” and would be “reversed.”  The Fed made huge mortgage-backed securities purchases. The purchases pushed mortgage interest rates to artificially low levels, stoked the second great house price bubble of the 21st century and made houses unaffordable...

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....