Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

Introduction With my talk, I would like to accomplish three goals: First, I want to explain some sound and time-tested basics of monetary theory. Second, I would like to point out why it is important to have a free market in money; that the battlefront of our time is not between, say, bitcoin, stable coins, gold, and silver, but between government-monopolized fiat monies and a free market in money. And third, I hope to strengthen your conviction that we need a free...

Appreciating cultural nuances is difficult without understanding the stories that provide insight into a society’s soul. Stories reflect a nation’s values, aspirations, and ideals. Songs, poems, and literature illuminate the tastes of citizens and even political and economic preferences. Economist and polymath Deidre McCloskey in her bourgeois trilogy argues that the evolution of a promarket rhetoric was central to the wealth explosion in the West. Indeed, economists...

A decline in the yearly growth rate of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to 8.5 percent in July from 9.1 percent in June has prompted many commentators to suggest that inflation has likely peaked. If this assessment is valid then it is held Fed policy makers are unlikely to push for an aggressive interest rate tightening in the months ahead. Before one decides to agree or disagree on the likely interest rate policy of the Fed there is the need to ascertain what do we...

The introduction of commodities into the market has interesting implications concerning Carl Menger’s value imputation. The subjectiveness behind this approach illustrates that marginal utility analysis may be used in the explanation of the price phenomena of a commodity, or more specifically, the price phenomena of a new item into the market. In the imaginary construction of Robinson Crusoe’s island, in which there is a community that does trade among a few...

According to many economic commentators, an effective way to generate economic growth is through the lowering of taxes. The lowering of taxes, it is held, will place more money in consumers’ pockets, thereby setting in motion an economic growth. This way of thinking is based on the belief that a given dollar increase in consumer spending will lift the economy’s gross domestic product (GDP) by a multiple of the increase in consumer expenditure. Assume that out of an...

One of the arrogances of “Western” nations is that our way of life and our liberties are protected by periodic elections as required by constitutions, written (America) or not (Great Britain), containing bills of rights, etc. The people rule, it is claimed, and we get exactly what we want, even if those in the minority are unhappy with the result. Minorities can always become tomorrow’s majority and institute alternative policies. Therefore, Western nations really...

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Economics by Thomas J. DiLorenzo Regnery Publishing, 2022; xx + 242 pp. Like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, Tom DiLorenzo is an economist with an extraordinary knowledge of history, and this shows to great advantage in his brilliant new book. In it, he stresses that economists who fail to grasp how the free market works often devise elaborate theories to show “market failures,” but when examined in the light of historical...

History matters, especially as the New York City today faces still another subway crisis. The New York subway system’s history illustrates the failures of state enterprise. The subways have been bad for so long that few know when the subways were “an engineering marvel.” That was when subway private management companies made money, about a century ago. Today there’s consensus the red-ink government subways are a nightmare. The state agency operating them has wasted...

Last week, I went to a vision center to get my new eyeglass prescription filled. Because I wear progressive lenses with antireflective coating and do not have vision insurance, I anticipated that the out-of-pocket cost of the glasses would be quite high. When I entered the shop and stated my business, the manager immediately asked if I had vision insurance, and I responded that I did not. The manager consulted with a saleswoman and sent her to assist me in choosing...

Progressive Conservatism: How Republicans Will Become America’s Natural Governing Party by F.H. Buckley Encounter Books, 2022; 254 pp. Frank Buckley is always a thoughtful and provocative author, but I disagree with what he has to say in Progressive Conservatism more than with other books of his I’ve reviewed, such as his outstanding American Secession and Curiosity (see my review here). In the present book, he defends a “national conservatism” and is critical of...