Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

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...

There is a story of war and peace in the contemporary currency markets. It has a main plot and many subplots. As yet, the story is without end. That may come sooner than many now expect. The narrator today has a more challenging job than the teller of the story about neutral, Entente, and Central Power currencies during World War I. (See Brown, Brendan “Monetary Chaos in Europe” chapter 2 [Routledge, 2011].) Today’s Russia war (whether the military conflict in...

In the previous articles I touched upon the question about subject of global American hegemony and its consequences for freedom. Now let’s look at the problem from another perspective. In the 1980s, Poland viewed the United States as a country capable of defeating the “Evil Empire” (USSR) and thus sowing throughout the Soviet bloc ideas of freedom that were so close to societies tormented by the yoke of communism. Today, Poland’s enthusiasm for the United States and...

On August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon announced that the US dollar (USD) would no longer be redeemable in gold. This was supposed to be temporary. And yet, 51 years later, here we are. The gold standard was gradually destroyed in the twentieth century. Now people are experiencing the consequences: less purchasing power, more economic cycles, and a weaker economy. In the chapter 4 of his book What Has Government Done to Our Money?, Murray Rothbard goes over the steps the...

Ask the average person what they believe to be the most economically important innovation of the twentieth century, and they’ll probably point to the internet. The internet has certainly disproved Paul Krugman’s prediction that it would have no greater impact on the economy than the fax machine, but even this transformative technology may only warrant a silver medal when compared to something much more banal: the intermodal shipping container. The shipping container...

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the institution that dates the peaks and troughs of the business cycles: A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP [gross domestic product], real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the...

“We are the makers of our own fate,” said Christian Lindner (FDP, Free Democratic Party), German federal minister of finance, in a TV interview not too long ago. This statement was made in the context of being asked if Vladimir Putin had had a hold over Germany, considering its rather dire energy situation, now, but especially going into winter. Torn between a decade-long reliance on cheap Russian gas on the one side and a sudden desperation to be energy independent...

1. The Character of Monetary Entries Economic calculation can comprehend everything that is exchanged against money. The prices of goods and services are either historical data describing past events or anticipations of probable future events. Information about a past price conveys the knowledge that one or several acts of interpersonal exchange were effected according to this ratio. It does not convey directly any knowledge about future prices. We may often assume...