Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

Most economists see GDP as a snapshot of the performance of the economy. However, it is better understood as a misleading statistic which fails to accurately describe what really is happening economically. Original Article: “GDP Provides a False Reading of the State of the Economy” The GDP (gross domestic product) statistic portrays a view that the key driving factor of economic growth is not the production of wealth but rather its consumption. Instead, it is a...

Libertarians have a reputation for denigrating traditional American institutions. They deride the Superbowl as “sportsball,” sneer at mass-market entertainment as “bread and circuses.” It goes deeper than that. As Mises Institute president Jeff Deist says: While libertarians enthusiastically embrace markets, they have for decades made the disastrous mistake of appearing hostile to family, to religion, to tradition, to culture, and to civic or social institutions—in...

After months of being portrayed as a villain or worse in the mainstream media, Joe Manchin suddenly has become a Democratic Party hero—all because he has declared he will support legislation that he and President Joe Biden claim will “reduce inflation” and give us better weather. Not surprisingly, the New York Times is leading the way in effusively praising the legislation, claiming the bill “would be the most ambitious action ever taken by the United States to try...

Coercive covid-19 lockdown measures, vaccine mandates, the transition to green energy, and poorly thought out Western sanctions against Russia have all played significant roles in disrupting global food markets and supply chains. In May 2022, data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization indicated that, relative to twelve months ago, “international wheat prices have increased 56 percent,” “cereal prices are up nearly 30 percent,” and “vegetable oils are 45...

The world today is in crisis. Military aggression in Ukraine has escalated into global economic war, with nations forced to choose between following the lead of an increasingly illiberal West and access to the vital energy and industrial markets of Russia and China. At the same time, the world continues to suffer the devastating consequences of “public health” experts who exploited the coronavirus crisis to pursue their underlying authoritarian impulses. Meanwhile,...

From the Equal Pay Act 1970 to the Equality Act 2010, there has been a wave of legalization in Britain to turn the state into some omniscient being that can determine the intentions of an employer. While these pieces of legislation did not enforce direct quotas onto businesses, they have increased inefficiencies through the increase in human resources roles for companies and organizations to cover their own backs. These pieces of anti-discrimination legislation...

The U.S. economy contracted for the second straight quarter during the second quarter this year, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday. With that, economic growth has hit a widely accepted benchmark for defining an economy as being in recession: two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. According to the BEA, the US economy contracted 0.9 percent during the second quarter in the first estimate of real GDP as a compounded annual rate. This...

Rothbard's two-volume An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought contains a lengthy reference list, but a close look at the books reveals that Rothbard continually cited certain authors and borrowed his theses from them. One of them was Emil Kauder. Kauder appears to be quite an important figure: a member of the third generation of Austrian economists in Vienna and a prolific scholar whose publications appeared in many academic outlets. Yet, Kauder...

There is more talk of secession and civil war in the United States today than at any time since the 1850s, and popular confidence in government appears to be at an all-time low. As a foreigner, I have no particular red or blue loyalties, but I have deployed with Americans on many occasions, and in some ways, their history is also mine. There is a chance that history will look at the culture wars of the 2010s as a prelude to the great disintegration of the 2020s, so...

A monopoly is often seen as one of the gravest and most concerning manifestations of market failure. In the neoclassical tradition, the existence of a monopolist in a market is generally seen as sufficient justification for government intervention to put a halt to the monopolist's exploitative ways. The Austrian tradition, however, has historically remained skeptical of this alleged problem of monopoly. Two of the most prolific Austrian theorists, Murray Rothbard and...