As kids, many of us baby boomers were often told by well meaning adults, “The policeman is your friend.” In the era of (relative) political innocence prior to the Vietnam War and Watergate, these adults could be forgiven their surpassing naiveté. But now “mere libertarian” (his term) economist Dan Klein goes these adults one better and counsels
The richest and most successful Keynesian on Wall St has summarized his current policy advice succinctly. The Fed should monetize all kinds of debt in order to keep the nominal economic growth rate north of the nominal interest rate. In this way, necessary deleveraging can take place gradually and less painfully. This policy of course won’t work.
Following up Joe’s excellent post on price stickiness : Note that the same argument applies to the so-called “real rigidities” — imperfect competition, co-specialized investment, search costs, efficiency wages, and the like — that are central to New Keynesian theories of unemployment. These sorts of institutional arrangements are part of a
A message on behalf of Professor Gerard Casey: “Would the person who emailed Gerard Casey in early March concerning political options for libertarians and who didn’t receive a reply, please resend his original message. The original message was inadvertently
I recently finished reading a book on the South Sea Bubble. I was surprised at how fascinating it was. I have heard of the South Sea Bubble before, but I couldn’t really tell you much about it. I knew that it happened in the early 1700s and there was also something called a Mississippi Bubble. However, I couldn’t make a distinction between the
You’d think banks had all the political friends they need. After all, court cases have been going their way since 1811 when Master of the Rolls Sir William Grant ruled in Carr v. Carr that the term “debts” mentioned in a will included a cash balance in a bank deposit account. Grant ruled that since the money had been paid generally into the bank
What is “ The Secret To Germany’s Low Youth Unemployment “? Apprenticeship programs, says NPR. Absolutely no mention of the fact that Germany has no statutory minimum wage as of yet (although Merkel wants
The New York Times opinion page recently ran a series of short pieces on Rethinking How We Teach Economics , making the point that we need to change our economics instruction to be able to account for the financial crisis. There are several articles in the “debate,” but I would like to consider Alan Blinder’s contribution. In addition to being a
In the Tulipmania crash the common Witte Croonen bulb, that rose in price twenty-six times in January 1637, fell to one-twentieth of its peak price a week later From 1717 to 1720, shares of John Law’s Mississippi Company were bid up by frenzied Frenchmen from 500 livres to a high of 10,100 livres, before Law was run out of France and the shares
If you drive a car , I’ll tax the street. If you try to sit , I’ll tax your seat. If you get too cold , I’ll tax the heat. If you take a walk , I’ll tax your feet. . . . And if you don’t use your gift cards within two years, I’ll seize them all. (With apologies to the Beatles) Pursuant to a law passed two years ago, the New Jersey Department of
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.