Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

Once a State has been established, the problem of the ruling group or “caste” is how to maintain their rule.1 While force is their modus operandi, their basic and long-run problem is ideological. For in order to continue in office, any government (not simply a “democratic” government) must have the support of the majority of its subjects. This support, it must be noted, need not be active enthusiasm; it may well be passive resignation as if to an inevitable law of...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]In the early 1980s few outlets existed for anyone interested in the Austrian school of economics or robust libertarian scholarship. Few universities taught Hayek, much less Mises or Rothbard. Libraries and bookstores carried little of interest for serious economists and thinkers in the old liberal tradition.

[This is a revised version of written testimony submitted to the the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology of the Committee on Financial Services, US House of Representatives, “Fractional Reserve Banking and Central Banking as Sources of Economic Instability: The Sound Money Alternative,” June 28, 2012.] Chairman Paul and members of the subcommittee, I am deeply honored to appear before you to testify on the topic of fractional-reserve banking....

For most experts a key factor that policymakers should be watching is the ratio between actual real output and potential real output. The potential output is the maximum output that the economy could attain if all resources are used efficiently. In Q3 2020, the US real GDP–to–potential US real GDP ratio stood at 0.965 against 1.01 in Q3 2019. A strong ratio (above 1) can be of concern because according to experts it can set in motion inflationary pressures. To...

Like me you are probably looking over photos of supposed Trump supporters breaching the ramparts and storming the Capitol yesterday. That is if you can find them. To “protect” us from viewing these incredibly “disturbing” scenes, Twitter has helpfully announced that it will severely restrict their distribution across its network. We can all rest easier, I suppose. Though even memory-addled Americans may recall the free-for-all in posting BLM and Antifa violence on...

On Wednesday, a mob apparently composed of Trump supporters forced its way past US Capitol security guards and briefly moved unrestrained through much of the capitol building. They displayed virtually no organization and no clear goals. The only deaths were on the side of the mob, with one woman—apparently unarmed—shot dead by panicky and trigger-happy capitol police, with three others suffering non-specific “medical emergencies.” Yet, the media response has been to...

The 1920s featured political détente, debt liquidations by prior consumer price inflation, an introductory stalling of monetary inflation, a German economic miracle, and a broad-based technological revolution. The 2020s have none of these. This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Michael Stack. Reincarnation of the Roaring Twenties—one century on from the 1920s—is the lead speculative narrative this new year on Wall Street,...

In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West by Wendy Brown Columbia University Press, 2019 viii + 248 pages Wendy Brown, a well-known political theorist who teaches at UC Berkeley, does not like Friedrich Hayek very much. She in part blames him and others as well, including Milton Friedman and James Buchanan, for policies that have led to the bad state of the world in general and America in particular today. In the Ruins of...

Mobilization and separation, not persuasion, is the way forward. Original Article: Welcome to 2021 in post-persuasion America! I first heard this term used by Steve Bannon, architect of the surprising 2016 Trump campaign, in a PBS Frontline documentary titled America's Great Divide. Speaking way back in the precovid days of early 2020, Bannon asserted the information age makes us less curious and willing to consider worldviews...

California’s government has become infamous for abusing its citizens, from steep taxation to burdensome regulations to arbitrary covid impositions. But less noticed is how it is also trying to abuse other Americans as well. As reported in a December 28 Los Angeles Times editorial, the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA), which oversees sales and use tax collections, is trying to retroactively impose sales taxes on out-of-state retailers as far...