Tag Archives: Featured

Overview: Late yesterday, on the eve of the quarterly refunding announcement, Fitch cut the US rating to AA+ from AAA, citing project fiscal deterioration over the next few years and "the erosion of governance". S&P also has the US as an AA+ credit. Ironically, many observers who have been critical of the US monetary and fiscal policies, like former Treasury Secretary Summers and El-Erian, were also critical of Fitch's decision. The US 30-year yield reached its...

Economic exchange stands as the defining essence of any economy, epitomizing the intricate web of interconnected transactions that shape its very existence. In essence, an economy derives its essence from the culmination of individual exchanges. However, the profound impact of the crucial distinction between voluntary choice and coercion often goes unnoticed by many outside the realm of economic study. In this article, we delve deeper into the dynamics of economic...

The state is, first and foremost, an institution whose overarching goal is the forcible subjugation of all the people who inhabit a given territory. However, what makes the state different from other coercive entities, such as organized crime groups, is that it enjoys some form of popular legitimacy. In other words, in addition to enslaving its inhabitants physically, it needs to secure their mental servitude as well. Many forms of such servitude have been tested by...

Words matter and definitions often become imprecise and “slippery.” There is a natural evolution of language wherein words gradually change over time, but often a key meaning gets lost and there no longer remains a single word to describe a concept. This has been the case with the common word “inflation.” Over the last few years, I have kept a list of quotes about the accurate definition of inflation (and I am always looking for more quotes). What inspired this list...

Whether political elites promote outright socialism or interventionism, thanks to the reality of economic calculation, they are advocating a failed economy. Original Article: "Why Mises’s Theory of Economic Calculation Still Is Relevant Today" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

n discussing the recent boycott of Target, University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers recently told MSNBC: [If] Target caves into this, then it says that the moment you threaten the employees of even a very large corporation, you get to control its policies. This is economic terrorism, literally terrorism, creating fear among the workers and forcing the corporations to sell the things you want, not sell the things you don’t. Professor Wolfers is wrong...

Michael talks with Tom Woods about RFK, Jr., whether the elites are evil or just incompetent, and the secret of Tom's success. Out of the Woods? Video of Out of the Woods? [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

Why do individuals pay higher prices for some goods than others? The common reply references laws of supply and demand, but what are these laws? The answer is found in the law of diminishing marginal utility. Most economists explain this law by describing the satisfaction one derives from consuming a good such as an ice cream cone. The satisfaction derived from consuming a second cone might be less than the satisfaction derived from the first cone, and so on....

These are trying times. The war party seems stronger than ever while the peace movement feels even more scattered.  Make no mistake: D.C. is hungry for war. The neocon plan has always been to defeat Russia using Ukraine as a proxy. It started with Victoria Nuland's Ukrainian coup in 2014. Now that the proxy war has apparently failed, the neocons are in desperation mode—and they do not have a reverse gear. If this seems like a bad dream, you are not alone. How does it...

Attention Upper Division Undergrads and Grad Students! We realize many of you are just getting the hang of summer and as it warms up, the last thing on your mind is exercising it. But, you will not want to miss we this great opportunity at the end of summer: The Ron Paul Scholars Seminar. The seminar will take place on Friday, September 1 at the Hilton Washington Dulles Airport in Herndon, VA. What is it? The Ron Paul Scholars Seminar is a one-day, interactive...