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Video: Mises Institute Senior Fellow Alex Pollock moderates a panel discussion on Lawrence White's new book Better Money: Gold, Fiat, Or Bitcoin?. The event is sponsored by the Federalist Society.  White delves into the timely debate surrounding alternative currencies amidst the backdrop of constant inflation in the fiat currency world. Better Money explains and analyzes gold, fiat dollars, and Bitcoin standards to evaluate their relative merits and...

Was ist heute eigentlich noch erlaubt, das weder reglementiert noch besteuert ist? Mir fällt da leider gerade nichts ein. Der Staat hat überall seine Finger drin. Entsprechend steigen die Anzahl der Beamten ebenso wie die Haushaltsbudgets und die Steuereinnahmen. Steuern seien der Preis für eine zivilisierte Gesellschaft, wird beruhigend eingeworfen. Dem ist leider nicht so: Der Grad einer Zivilisation misst sich nicht daran, wie viel Geld der Staat seinen Bürgern wegnimmt. Wir...

There are others, besides the Austrians, who acknowledge the crucial role of monetary policy and even blame the Federal Reserve for the Great Depression. Some scholars, which we can greatly appreciate, even go so far as to rightly criticize Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies for prolonging the Great Depression: Jim Powell’s book FDR’s Folly, Burton Folsom’s book New Deal or Raw Deal?, and the scholarly work of University of California, Los Angeles economists...

This month marks the fourth anniversary of one of the most disastrous assaults on human rights in American history. It was on March 16, 2020 that the President Trump issued "guidelines" for "15 days to slow the spread" which stated that "Governors of states with evidence of community transmission should close schools in affected and surrounding areas." The administration instructed all members of the public to "listen to and follow the directions of your state and...

In an article in the New York Times on March 27, 2018, Paul Krugman argues that economists who believe increases in money supply cause inflation are wrong. According to Krugman, the key factor that sets inflation in motion is unemployment. While a decline in the unemployment rate is associated with an increase in the rate of inflation, an upsurge in the unemployment rate is associated with a decline in the rate of inflation.Krugman believes inflation is about general...

The leftist website Counterpunch has published an article today entitled “Millionaires Stopped Contributing to Social Security on March 2, 2024.” The thrust of the article is that once someone reaches an income of $168,600, “they stop paying in.” The operative terms are “contributing” and “paying in.” They reflect a misguided mindset with respect to Social Security, which is the crown jewel of American socialism. This leftist mindset and terminology have...

Investor and author Doug Casey recently wrote that most economists “are political apologists masquerading as economists.” He says they are like witch doctors pretending to be neurosurgeons. They “prescribe the way they would like the world to work and tailor theories to help politicians demonstrate the virtue and necessity of their quest for more power.” The discipline of economics, says Casey, “has been turned into the handmaiden of government in order to give...

Stephen Anderson, in his Mises Wire essays of February 1 (“Are Bankruptcies of Some US States in the Future?”) and February 23 (“US States Have a Long History of Defaulting”), worries that some US states may be on the precipice of bankruptcy. While a potential problem—especially in light of high debt levels among federal government, businesses, and consumers—possible state bankruptcies and defaults must be clarified before we conclude that state bankruptcies lie...

During the most recent commercial real estate bubble, two things happened in tandem. First, due to the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy, savers were unable to invest their cash at a decent rate of return. Second, prices of illiquid assets inflated in an extreme manner, riding on cheap debt and the rush of investors stretching for yield on their capital.Such was the state of capital markets for several years, as the Obama, Trump, and Biden regimes—along...

Many economists think the Federal Reserve can use Phillips Curve tradeoffs between inflation and unemployment to guide Fed macro stabilization policy. Inflationary Fed policies may act as a monetary stimulus, to regulate unemployment. Data from 1948 to 1985 indicates that the Phillips Curve doesn’t actually exist. Does the data since 1985 reveal stable Phillips Curve tradeoffs- estimates of the effects of inflation on unemployment that may guide...