Price inflation is no coincidence. It is a policy. Governments, along with their so-called experts, attempt to persuade you that price inflation stems from anything other than the consistent, albeit slower, rise in aggregate prices year after year. Issuing more currency than the private sector demands, thus eroding its purchasing power and creating a constant annual transfer of wealth from real wages and deposit savings to the government.Oil prices are not a cause of...
Read More »Butler, Butt Out!
What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order....
Read More »Fiat Money is the Greatest Danger Our Economy Faces
In nature everything has a cycle. Birth, growth, maturation, death. Everything, including the planets and stars. Nothing stays the same. So why does our government believe they can master economic cycles and not experience ups and downs the way nature does? Throughout history, economies haven’t worked that way.For years, to enhance trade, countries tied their currencies to commodities that were scarce, valuable and had steady prices. Often, gold, silver, sometimes...
Read More »Thanks to Government Animal Control, Stray Animals Rule My Neighborhood
In my neighborhood, we have an animal control problem.When I go for a walk, I carry dog mace (a nonlethal alternative to my usual revolver) because there are always, always, loose dogs out. I’ve been followed around by barking dogs many times, and they’re not always on the same streets, which means it’s hard to avoid them. One of my neighbors’ guests was bitten by a loose collie. I narrowly avoided having to break up a dog fight when an aggressive Boston terrier...
Read More »May Day Fed Day
Overview: Much of Asia and Europe are off for the May Day labor holiday. The dollar is mostly softer in the thin activity. However, the dollar has edged higher against the yen and approached JPY158. The euro initially fell to $1.0650, a six-day low and where a billion euros in options expire later today. It has recovered to almost $1.0675. Emerging market currencies are subdued. Central European currencies, the South African rand, and Mexican peso are sporting...
Read More »What the Campus Protesters and Their Critics Get Right and Wrong
As the academic year draws to a close, protests have broken out on college campuses across the country. Students are protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza. Generally, they are calling for the United States government to stop arming and funding the war and, in the meantime, for their universities to divest from Israeli businesses.The current spate of protests can be drawn back to April 17, when the president of Columbia University was brought before Congress to testify...
Read More »Why the GOP Betrayed Its Own Voters on Ukraine
What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order....
Read More »Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming…
A version of this article first appeared as an exclusive update to RPI subscribers. Subscribe for free here.Student action on university campuses against US involvement in Israel’s slaughter of Gaza has exploded across the country. Suddenly there is the distinct feel in the air of the anti-Vietnam war protests once they finally caught on in 1968 and soon thereafter changed the course of US history.Both protest movements were fully demonized by the same forces of the...
Read More »Creating Wealth: The Cantillon or the Smith Way
For those who have any exposure to the subject, Adam Smith is the father of modern economics. Few have heard of Richard Cantillon. Both wrote on the subject of wealth creation, Cantillon in Essay on the Nature of Trade in General and Smith in The Wealth of Nations. Of the two, Cantillon, who preceded Smith, may have had a firmer grasp on the dynamics of wealth creation. Cantillon is considered the father of entrepreneurship, whereas Adam Smith seemed to go out of his...
Read More »Yen Retreats, while Stronger EMU GDP Underscores Nascent Recovery and Lifts the Euro
Overview: Stronger than expected eurozone GDP strengthened the sense that a nascent recovery may be taking hold and has given the euro a bid in the European morning. The dollar, though, is enjoying a firmer tone against the other G10 currencies today. Australia's unexpected weakness in retail sales has weighed on the Antipodean currencies. The Aussie and Kiwi are off slightly more than 0.5% today. Japanese data were mixed (a recovery in industrial production but...
Read More »