Although this paper was presented as a lecture in 1996, I have chosen to publish it in this volume in nearly its original manuscript form. It was never previously published or posted electronically, but the paper achieved a limited circulation in manuscript form via copy and fax machines during the primitive days of the Internet. Despite its
Local knowledge. They’re being paid huge dollars. Context. Randomness. XKCD strip. Understanding social processes very broadly. Occupy Bourbon Street: redistribution.
I’m speaking to a Mid-South Model UN Group in about an hour about human rights and the Millennium Development Goals. I’m planning to record the talk, and it should be online eventually. Since human rights include the right to trade without interference, I’m going to focus on a couple of issues: free trade and immigration. Here is a handful of
I always enjoy reading articles that talk about something that is doomed. Not because I have a negative view of the world, but because I always love to see why – the reasons behind the doom. The Christmas time of year naturally brings stories related to the season. I recently stumbled across a news article stating that frankincense is “doomed”.
Last week I attended a workshop at the ECB on Global Liquidity. Global Liquidity of course refers to money flowing throughout the world as a result of western central bank money printing—especially Fed printing. I thought it might be beneficial to highlight some insights gained. 1. Attended mostly by central bankers, the group of 40-50 people
According to Bloomberg , banks are beginning to push short sales consistently for the first time since foreclosures began to pile up back in 2008. Prices really began to fall before the financial crisis, as early as mid-2007 in some places, but banks have long placed numerous obstacles in the way of homeowners who tried to sell their homes for
One of John Maynard Keynes’ alleged contributions to economic science is a focus on “expectations.” What is meant by expectations is how individuals predict the uncertain future to be; expectations will influence what actions individuals will undertake in the present (since all action is intertemporal). Keynes, of course, considered these
Constitutional law is supposed to be different from other types of law. But the Obamacare litigation headed to the Supreme Court shows that liberal interpreters of the Constitution have forgotten the distinction. In common law, intended to maintain the continuity of legitimate expectations, later rulings carry more precedential weight than earlier
I thought fellow Austrians would be interested in an excerpt from Krugman’s 1997 paper in Foreign Affairs , “Is Capitalism Too Productive,” Heterodox doctrines, in economics and elsewhere, often fail to get adequately discussed in their formative stages. Both the intellectual and the political establishment tend to regard them as unworthy of
More and more underwater borrowers are deciding it’s time to walk from their mortgage. “Guilt and morality are one side, and objective financial analysis are on the other side,” 68-year old David Martin told msnbc . “They’re coming to two opposite conclusions. I wonder how many other people are struggling with the same question.” Three out of 10
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.