Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

The Left long ago figured out how to get ordinary people interested in economic policy. The strategy is two pronged. The first part is to frame the problem as a moral problem. The second part is to make the fight over economic policy into a fight over something much bigger than economics: it’s a fight between views of what it means to be a good person. The Left knows how to make the war over economics into a war over culture. Yet when it comes to economic policy,...

It is only through the increase in capital goods, i.e., through the enhancement and the expansion of the infrastructure, that labor can become more productive and earn a higher hourly wage. Original Article: “Understanding Minimum Wage Mandates: Empirical Studies Aren’t Enough” This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Michael Stack. President Joe Biden has promised to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour. Some...

[Chapter 2 of Rothbard’s newly edited and released Conceived in Liberty, vol. 5, The New Republic: 1784–1791.] It has been alleged—from that day to this—that the depression which hit the United States, especially the commercial cities, was caused by “excessive” imports by Americans beginning in 1783. But this kind of pseudo-explanation merely betrays ignorance of economics: a boom in imports reflects voluntary choices and economic improvement by consumers, and this...

The seeds of sound-money destruction were sown at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which established that US dollars could be held as central bank reserves and were redeemable for gold by the US Treasury at thirty-five dollars an ounce. This was the so-called gold exchange standard, but only foreign central banks and some multinational organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), enjoyed this right of redemption. The system depended upon the solemn...

After decades of financialization and government favors, Wall Street now has little to do with free, functioning markets anymore and has largely become an adjunct of the central bank. Today, entrepreneurship is out, and bailouts are in. Be sure to follow Radio Rothbard at Mises.org/RadioRothbard. You Might Also Like Politics and Ideas 2021-02-09 In the Age of Enlightenment, in the years in...

Among the hotly contested list of Joe Biden’s promises is an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. There are plenty of sound reasons to oppose government minimum wage laws, but there is one objection making the rounds that is based on bad economics and should be avoided, and that’s the “businesses will pass on the costs to consumers” objection. For instance, a now deleted tweet by someone claiming that a $15 minimum hourly wage will cause Taco Bell...

Last week, the United States signed a five-year extension of the New START arms control treaty with Russia. Russia’s President Putin signed the treaty shortly thereafter. The “Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty” allows Russia and the US to monitor each other’s nuclear forces, facilities, and activities. The idea is to keep track of the relative strength of the two regimes’ respective arsenals and to encourage reductions. The treaty also caps the number of deployed...

. US residents whose family members died with or of covid will be eligible to receive $7,000 for funeral and related expenses, New York senator Chuck Schumer (D) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) announced. During a briefing in Queens on Monday, February 8, the duo announced that $267 million of the federally funded funeral benefits would go to low-income families in New York alone. The package, Schumer added, is part of a $2 billion disaster funds...

“Threats to freedom of speech, writing, and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.” ~ George Orwell In early December I asked Jim Grant how to reconcile exuberant financial markets with economic reality that reads like dystopian fiction. He responded, I’m not sure there’s much distinction. To me, the current form of dystopia is the bubble form. So I...

In the Age of Enlightenment, in the years in which the North Americans founded their independence, and a few years later, when the Spanish and Portuguese colonies were transformed into independent nations, the prevailing mood in Western civilization was optimistic. At that time all philosophers and statesmen were fully convinced that we were living at the beginning of a new age of prosperity, progress, and freedom. In those days people expected that the new political...