On July 30, Yellow, one of the oldest and largest trucking businesses in the United States, ceased operations and moved to declare bankruptcy. According to reports , the final nail in the coffin of the ninety-nine-year-old business was a labor dispute with the Teamsters Union. Yellow’s executives also deserve some blame, however. The trucking
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are set to vote this week on new legislation that would greatly increase the federal government’s power over private businesses, workers, and US citizens. Unfortunately, much of the GOP majority is supportive of the legislation—the “Border Security and Enforcement Act of 2023” (HR 2640)—because it is
The blockbuster film The Woman King has resurrected the myth that slavery furnishes wealth. While irate critics argue that the film downplays the fact that the Dahomey Empire derived its wealth from slavery, however, this observation wrongly conflates political success with human flourishing. The state and individual are two distinct entities, and
The leviathan does not rest in pursuing free universities, creeping ahead unchecked by either reason, law, or accounting principles. Why is student assessment of their federal-debt-financed degrees so low? Why are 26 percent of past payments delinquent ? More than 50 percent of students agree that they either studied the wrong major or wasted time
As the issue of reparations for victims of slavery rages within the Democratic party and on cable news stations, we encounter a common problem: virtually no one is addressing the specifics of how such a reparations effort would be administered. Who exactly would receive these reparations payments? Who would pay them? How would guilt and victimhood
One of the challenges in looking at income and wealth data is getting a sense of how different demographic groups are affected. It’s relatively easy to find median income and wealth data over time for the entire population, for example. But then problems of interpretation immediately present themselves. For example, if the data is household data,
I could see no reason why I should, at the end of each week, pour the reward of my toil into the purse of my master. When I carried to him my weekly wages, he would, after counting the money, look me in the face with a robber-like fierceness, and ask, “Is this all?” He was satisfied with nothing less than the last cent. He would, however, when I
This week America celebrated its Independence day, a holiday dedicated to honoring, as Ryan McMaken noted , “ a document that promotes secession, rebellion, and what the British at the time regarded as treason.” In spite of our own government’s attempts to hijack it for simply another celebration of sterile patriotic pride , the success of
The economic outlook in the United States right now is remarkably positive according to many indicators; unemployment is at it’s lowest since the dot-com bubble, the stock market is at record highs, and inflation is relatively mild. Wages, however, seem to be bucking the trend. Growth in nominal wage rates has remained modest despite a tight labor
As Houston continues to deal with the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, Florida stands prepared for the impact of Irma. It is during times of crisis like this, when government feels the greatest need to control, that sound economics is most needed. This is why laws on “price gouging,” no matter their intent, bring tragic consequences . This is also
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.