Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

. [This text is excerpted from the introduction to The Anatomy of the Crash, a Mises Institute ebook to be released in April 2020.] The Great Crash of 2020 was not caused by a virus. It was precipitated by the virus, and made worse by the crazed decisions of governments around the world to shut down business and travel. But it was caused by economic fragility. The supposed greatest economy in US history actually was a walking sick man, made comfortable with...

The year 2006 seems like a lifetime ago. The housing boom seemed to be going full throttle, but danger lurked. I wrote on LewRockwell.com in March of that year, concerning a Las Vegas real estate seminar, that “nary a discouraging word was spoken.” But despite the happy talk coming from the podium that day, pleasing the thirteen hundred attendees, I was hearing something different: “builders I talked to at the Outlook don’t believe [Dennis] Smith’s numbers. They say...

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. Quite a few people may wonder why the global fiat money system has not yet collapsed. The fiat money system did not crash in the financial and economic crisis of 2008/2009, when a great many people feared the debt pyramid would come crashing down. And it has not gone belly-up in the current coronavirus crisis, in which governments all over the world have shut down economic activity, making production fall over...

There are many who use the coronavirus crisis to blame freedom to trade for the current epidemic. And, of course, there are those who are already arguing for autarky, closing our borders, and producing everything locally. But we have been living in a world that relies on trade between different populations since the birth of civilization. For example, eight thousand years ago, there was an intense trade in lapis lazuli, a semiprecious blue stone, between what is now...

Unlike the federal government, state and local governments in America can’t just create money out of thin air. So when tax revenues go down, that money is simply not available to the state legislatures and city councils anymore. These governments either have to borrow the money or raise taxes and hope the tax hike itself doesn’t cause total revenue to fall. The tax revenues in these states, cities, and counties are heavily dependent on economy activity. That is,...

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has halted economies across the globe. With various countries on lockdown and companies unable to continue production, an economic downturn is inevitable. In light of this, the government of Denmark has come up with a strategy to avoid recession—paying 75 percent of private employees’ salaries. As long as companies do not fire people, the government is offering to pay 75 percent of their employees’ salaries, up to $3,288 per month...

[From Chapter 8 of Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State.] We shall concentrate on the capitalist-entrepreneurs, economically the more important type of entrepreneur. These are the men who invest in “capital” (land and/or capital goods) used in the productive process…. The capitalist-entrepreneur buys factors or factor services in the present; his product must be sold in the future. He is always on the alert, then, for discrepancies, for areas where he can earn more...

Introduction In 1997 Ralph Raico published an article titled “Keynes and the Reds.” Raico’s article highlighted John Maynard Keynes’s review of a 1936 book by the British socialists Sidney and Beatrice Webb called Soviet Communism. In his review, Keynes discusses Joseph Stalin’s USSR and concludes: “The result is impressive.” For Raico, a historian in the classical liberal tradition, this statement contradicts the conventional idea that Keynes was a model liberal....

In times of crisis, governments have a tendency to overcompensate for risk. This tendency may be in the public’s best interest, but it could also serve broader governmental interests. The public and government’s interest are not always one and the same. After the September 11 attacks, a bipartisan Congress enacted the disastrous USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act) in an...

Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been reluctant to impose mandatory “social distancing” orders on the Mexican population. According to USNews, López Obrador “has maintained a relaxed public attitude” toward COVID-19, and the Mexican government did not impose a ban on “non-essential” work until March 30, long after health officials in other countries insisted Mexico must do so. According to Dr. Miguel Betancourt, president of the Mexican Society of...