This article is based on a speech delivered at the European Students for Liberty Regional Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, held on September 22, 2018. That “taxation is theft” is often the default position libertarians take when it comes to tax policy. Why? Because a “tax is a coerced contribution to state and federal revenues,” and “coercion is
The G20 meeting in Buenos Aires had a primary objective. To reach an agreement between the United States and China. However, the announced agreement is more a “diplomatic truce” than a real agreement. The United States commits to delaying tariffs against China that would start on January 1st, 2019 and China commits to purchase more agricultural
International analysts are not giving us the full story on Venezuela. Political commentators have given their spin on the topic of Venezuela’s economic crisis. To their credit, some of them get the surface level details correct on the contributing factors to Venezuela’s collapse — destruction of civil liberties and property rights. However, the
If we analyze the consensus expectations of analysts and investment banks at the end of 2017, the conclusion was unanimous: Buy Europe and emerging against the United States amid weakening US dollar estimates in 2018. And it has been exactly the opposite. I’ve already warned a few times about the risk of such a biased consensus towards a weak US
We are constantly bombarded with bad news. There are disasters, dangers, challenges, and woes. On the political scene, we find perpetual discord peppered with lurid denunciations and shrill condemnations. Media reports are alternately dismaying, disappointing, distressing, disgusting, or depressing. But despair not, friends: All is not lost! Here
The socialist policies of the Venezuela government continue to impose a living hell on its people. Hyperinflation has turned its currency to literal garbage . Mortality rates have skyrocketed for groups such as infants, pregnant mothers, and the elderly as clinics have shut down and medicine grown scarce. Food has disappeared from store shelves
Adapted from an interview with Real Vision. We have been hearing from international bodies, from central banks that we were living in a synchronized growth territory. That we were seeing developed markets grow faster than what was typical while emerging markets were also growing in tandem. And that the economies were much healthier, that
On a recent jaunt to the end of the world, I found myself in one of those situations awkward for an Austrian economist, which is that of defending the Chicago school and Milton Friedman. As a result of my discussions with Chileans regarding economics and politics—especially the persisting divide in Chile between Allende and Pinochet supporters—I
[ Read this article in Italian. ] The Italian government has created another massive turmoil in European markets with its 2019 budget proposal. With a huge increase in spending, it estimated a deficit of 2.4% for 2019 compared to its previous target of 0.8% and the 1.6% announced by the finance minister. Not only does it represent a huge increase
“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” – Warren Buffett Earlier this month, the US 10-year bond reached a yield of 3.2%, the highest since 2011. As inflation in the United States picks up, the economy grows well above consensus estimates and unemployment falls to the lowest level of the last fifty years, it is
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. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.