Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

A visible weakness in economic activity in major world economies raises concern among various commentators that world economies have difficulties recovering despite very aggressive loose monetary policies. The yearly growth rate of US industrial production stood at minus 1.1 % in October, against minus 0.1% in September, and 4.1% in October last year. In the euro zone, the yearly growth rate of production stood at minus 1.7% in September versus minus 2.8% in the...

Often, government-created holidays begin with a good premise — i.e., Independence Day, Armistice Day — and get worse from there. On Independence Day, instead of celebrating armed rebellion and secession, we now sing the praises of the government. Similarly, Armistice Day — a day designed to commemorate the end of a war — became Veterans Day, a day designed to honor government employees. Thanksgiving Day, on the other hand, appears to have moved in the opposite...

What causes the seemingly unfounded confidence in socialism we encounter more and more in the news media and among political activists? In the Extinction Rebellion movement, for example, activists are quite certain they have learned that there is an alternative to markets as the means to economic prosperity. It’s a means that does not involve meeting the legitimate needs of one’s fellow men in the marketplace. It is likely not a coincidence that most people living...

According to Mariana Mazzucato, the RM Phillips Professor in the Economics of Innovation at the University of Sussex, government is an important factor in the promotion of innovation and thus economic growth. In particular, she challenges the popular view that innovation happens in the private sector, with governments playing a limited role. Many commentators regard her as a revolutionary thinker that challenges the accepted dogma regarding the role of government in...

The money supply growth rate rose in October, climbing to a twenty-eight-month high. The last time the growth rate was higher was during July of 2017, when the growth rate was 5.07 percent. During October 2019, year-over-year growth in the money supply was at 4.95 percent. That’s up from September’s rate of 3.10 percent, and was up from October 2018’s rate of 3.49 percent. The increase in money-supply growth in October represents a sizable reversal of the trend...

All doctrines that have sought to discover in the course of human history some definite trend in the sequence of changes have disagreed, in reference to the past, with the historically established facts and where they tried to predict the future have been spectacularly proved wrong by later events. Most of these doctrines were characterized by reference to a state of perfection in human affairs. They placed this perfect state either at the beginning of history or at...

School children learn that there are three branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial. In actual practice, however, there are four branches of government. The fourth is what for decades now has been called a “headless fourth branch of government,” the administrative state. As early as 1937, in a ” Report of the President’s Committee on Administrative Management ,” the authors write: Without plan or intent, there has grown up a headless “fourth...

Should employers have the right to discriminate in hiring on the basis of obesity? The Washington State Supreme Court recently ruled that “it is illegal for employers in Washington to refuse to hire qualified potential employees because the employer perceives them to be obese.” That follows guidelines released by the New York City Commission on Human Rights stating that discrimination against people based on their hairstyle will now be considered a form of racial...

Marketing guru and fund investor Hunter Hastings joins the Human Action podcast for a look at Economics for Entrepreneurs, a new platform which uses Austrian theory to teach actionable entrepreneurship. Can business acumen be taught, or is it innate? Hunter and Jeff examine consumer sovereignty, value creation, and the theory of the firm, all from a unique Austrian perspective. Austrians have a lot to say about how entrepreneurs ought to think, while business...

With interest rates in many countries close to zero or even negative, some commentators are of the view that monetary policy of the central banks are likely to become less effective in navigating the economy. In fact it is held that we have most likely reached a situation that the economy is approaching a liquidity trap. But what does this mean? In the popular framework of thinking that originates from the writings of John Maynard Keynes, economic activity is...