Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

When economic crises hit, most pundits and intellectuals never see it coming. That is because they have never learned the lesson that Bastiat sought to teach, namely that we need to look beneath the surface, to the unseen dimensions of human action, in order to see the full economic reality. It is not enough just to stand back and look at points on a chart going up and down, smiling when things go up and frowning when things go down. That is the nihilism of an...

Since the deep freeze in February caused millions of Texas homes to lose their power, partisans have been fighting over the blame. The governor blamed wind turbines and the green agenda, whereas Paul Krugman said the fault was with natural gas. Bob shows the numbers; natural gas was to blame only in the sense that nobody expected wind to be useful during a winter crisis. Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest: Bob’s article at Mises.org, which gives...

Like many mainstream economists who make predictions that inform and shape government policy, medical experts make predictions which can determine how a government addresses a perceived problem. A good example here is Professor Neil Ferguson, who led the flawed Imperial College covid-19 study which played a major role in the lockdowns implemented throughout Europe, and even in the US and Canada. The model used by Imperial offered many predications, including the...

In a recently published paper titled “Subjective Value In Entrepreneurship,” Professors Bylund and Packard apply the principle of subjective value to generate significant new avenues of thinking for entrepreneurial businesses to pursue. Watch the “Value Generation Business Model” video at Mises.org/E4B_108_Video. value-generation-business-model:7?r=69GquufdquhHCfynHaaJizQfhSz8R87h [embedded content] Key Takeaways and Actionable Insights Re-think value....

One of President Biden’s first executive actions was to declare January 27 “Climate Day.” This ad hoc holiday provided an opportunity for his administration to celebrate the latest rationale for economic central planning. The day’s festivities began with three executive orders on climate change, science, and technology. In his remarks, Biden bundled his environmental agenda with a jobs program, along with a broader policy to address social inequality and...

On the fourteenth of October 2020, Antal E. Fekete, the Hungarian-Canadian economist who saw himself as a monetary theorist following the tradition of Carl Menger, died in Budapest. Behind him was an eventful and fruitful life which was quite typical of the crazy last century. His experiences eventually filled Fekete with dark forebodings for the current century. We can only hope that this crazy year won’t become characteristic of an entire era, as his year of birth...

Bob discusses three separate items all related to nonviolence: (1) Gene Sharp’s work, (2) Bob’s old dream of how to topple a tyrant, and (3) the winners of the Louis CK contest. Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest: Gene Sharp’s book, From Dictatorship to Democracy The trailer for the documentary “How to Start a Revolution” Sharp’s list of 198 methods of nonviolent action The original Louis CK clip that inspired Bob’s contest For more information,...

The economic analysis of repudiation applies to the debt of all levels of government and to all countries. The central question is not how big the government is or how much it owes, but rather whether the debt is funded by taxes. Original Article: “The Economics and Ethics of Government Default, Part II” In the first installment of this series on government default, we examined the ethical status of the public debt and debt repudiation. Since the debt represents...

The GameStop saga—can we call it an insurrection?—wants easy heroes and villains. Both are available. The populist version of the story goes like this: a few thousand angry gamers, colluding via the now infamous WallStreetBets subreddit, brought at least one powerful hedge fund to its knees. Melvin Capital and other short sellers, completely blindsided, lost a reported $5 billion in what must have seemed like a sure-bet opportunity for their model of vulture...

Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop discuss five reasons why Rothbard’s work is so memorable. From his fearlessness in the face of opposition, to his commitment to peace and decency, Rothbard provides us with a model of principled scholarship. Additional Resources “Nations by Consent”: Mises.org/RR_54_02 Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature, and Other Essays: Mises.org/RR_54_03 “A Strategy for the Right”: Mises.org/RR_54_04 A History of Money and Banking in the...