Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

“Seniors hurt in Ponzi scam” headlined the story of elderly Southern Californians bilked in a pyramid scheme. While sad, the story reminded me of Social Security, since it is also a Ponzi scheme involving those older, with high payoffs to early recipients coming from pockets of later participants. With Social Security, however, it benefits those older at others’ expense. Pyramid scams collapse when they run out of enough new “investors” to pay earlier promises. Some...

“If you don’t expect too much from me You might not be let down.” — Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy” Inflation is a mechanism that government people use to fund wars, tyrannical governments, and favors to cronies. Inflation takes away significant fractions of the real value of savings. Savings are accumulated slowly. People add value, earn income, and defer purchases. Inflation depletes savings’ real value quickly. People then have to spend more to satisfy even their...

While governments have been assaulting private property rights for many years, they now are ramping up the pressure. Nothing less than our civilization is at stake. Original Article: “If Government Can Take from One Group, It Can and Will Take from Everyone” It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to argue that private property rights, as understood by classic liberal thinkers, by those who embrace Austrian economic theory, and by all members of an enlightened society, are...

Readers of the Mises Wire are most likely familiar with the Volcker moment. This was when former Fed chair Paul Volcker, in the face of steep price inflation, skyrocketed rates to nearly 20 percent. While critics of the Volcker moment complain that such a move also skyrocketed unemployment to almost 11 percent, it cannot be ignored that the price inflation was finally reined in. Not only did we see the benefit in reduced inflation, but Austrians have an answer...

By popular thinking, the key driver of economic growth is the increase in total demand for goods and services. It is also held that overall output increases by a multiple of the increase in expenditure by government, consumers and businesses. It is not surprising, then, that most commentators believe that through fiscal and monetary stimulus, government can prevent the US economy falling into a recession. For instance, increasing government spending and central bank...

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 calculation of the value of final goods and services produced during a particular time interval, usually a quarter or a year. Since consumer outlays are the largest part of the overall demand, it is held by many commentators that consumer spending is the key driver of economic growth....

1. Autistic Exchange and Interpersonal Exchange Action always is essentially the exchange of one state of affairs for another state of affairs. If the action is performed by an individual without any reference to cooperation with other individuals, we may call it autistic exchange. An instance: the isolated hunter who kills an animal for his own consumption; he exchanges leisure and a cartridge for food. Within society cooperation substitutes interpersonal or social...

Sweden’s rent control is widely touted by many who don’t understand economics as a model for how a property market should work. Young people in Ireland, for example, like to point to Sweden as a nirvana where rent control ensures easy availability of affordable and high-quality rental stock. I was once told by a young work colleague with strong socialist tendencies that they could move to Stockholm and get a high-spec modern apartment for a mere pittance compared to...

In the early morning of July 6th, an explosion damaged a monument in Georgia known as the Georgia Guidestones. Because of the damage, the rest of the monument was demolished for safety reasons. The stones were erected by anonymous donors in 1980 and list ten principles for humanity. At the time of writing, it seems that the explosion was the result of purposeful sabotage. Writing at Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok compares the willful destruction of the monument...

This article is the second in a two-part series. Check out part 1 here. Even though the downhill trajectory we’ve seen over the last decades in terms of property rights is bad enough, nothing could have ever prepared us for what the covid-19 crisis would bring. Even those of us who have read enough history to know that there’s really no line that the state will not cross in its fervent pursuit of absolute power were sincerely surprised. How could the ruling elite...