Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Because my economics courses focus on public policy, I often deal with benefit-cost analyses (BCA) in them. While little discussed, the central idea is simply to identify and include all the relevant benefits and costs of a decision, do our best to estimate their values, then choose the option that provides the greatest net benefits. Hardly a radical idea. It can be useful in disciplining our thinking to be more consistent. Benjamin Franklin employed a...

Some of you may know the name Alex Berenson, the former New York Times journalist who comes from a left-liberal background. He has been absolutely fearless and tireless on Twitter over the past eighteen months, documenting the overreach and folly of covid policy—and the mixed reality behind official assurances on everything from social distancing to masks to vaccine efficacy. He became a one-man army against the prevailing covid narratives. Mr. Berenson is famous for...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Life in American changed twenty years ago after the 9/11 attacks. Many Americans became enraged at anyone who did not swear allegiance to President George W. Bush’s antiterrorism crusade. Anyone who denied “they hate us for our freedoms” automatically became an enemy of freedom.

Today [August 15] marks 50 years since President Richard Nixon closed the “gold window,” ending the ability of foreign governments to exchange United States dollars for gold. Nixon’s action severed the last link between the dollar and gold, giving the U.S. a fiat currency. America’s experiment with fiat has led to an explosion of consumer, business, and—especially—government debt. It has also caused increasing economic inequality, a boom-bubble-bust business cycle,...

Having marked the quinquagenary of the destruction of the gold standard Sunday, August 15, it is natural to be a little nostalgic for the Bretton Woods system. After all, it might not have been the classical gold standard, but at least it wasn’t as bad as the fiat standard that succeeded it. As sites such as wtfhappenedin1971.com document, that year indeed looks to be a turning point in the economic history of the West. However, the suspension of convertibility of...

Mandating private and government employees to be immunized against covid-19 and requiring the use of standardized electronic passes as proof of immunization across the nation is what liberty is made of, the editors of the Washington Post argued last week. State governors such as Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R), who are blocking or attempting to block “government agencies, local businesses or both from mandating vaccination,” are engaged in “efforts that fly in the...

With June 2021 CPI growth being at a thirteen-year high, inflation has been on a lot of people’s minds lately. You can’t blame them, seeing as over 23 percent of all dollars in existence were created in 2020 alone. Although future inflation is certainly an important concern, in this article I instead focus on the chronic inflation this country has faced for over a century. Under normal circumstances, when most people think about inflation, they likely think of a...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]This is the fiftieth anniversary of the demise of the gold standard and the beginning of the current fiat paper standard. Many will say “good riddance” to gold and “thank goodness” for the “good ole greenback”! Reflection, however, produces an alternative conclusion.

I moved aside and watched our twelve-year-old van pull into the driveway. My wife opened the door, smiled, and told me she got the job. Putting the basketball down, I hugged her and told her I was proud. The job was a part-time evening and weekend position at the local country health food store, a good fit considering my wife’s interests. But deep down, a sense of sadness and partial defeat rolled over me. The ten-year period leading up to this moment had found my...

Abstract: The new “secular stagnation hypothesis” developed by Lawrence H. Summers attempts to justify why the demand stimulus applied in the aftermath of the global financial crisis failed to revive growth in a satisfactory manner. Building on previous ideas of Keynes, Hansen, and Bernanke, Summers claims that excess savings together with feeble investment drove the natural rate of interest down to zero and advanced economies into stagnation. As the US monetary...