Volume 24, Number 1 January 2004 “The world is in permanent monetary crisis,” Murray N. Rothbard once observed, “but once in a while, the crisis flares up acutely, and we noisily shift gears from one flawed monetary system to another.” Monetary systems built on floating fiat currencies are fragile things. Most of the world currently operates under
The Free Market 24, no. 1 (January 2004) The “Coalition Provisional Authority” (the US government) in Iraq has instituted a 15 percent tax in Iraq based on the view that “these collections are for the benefit of the Iraqi people.” The US will tax income, the transfer of “real property,” car sales, and gasoline. The US claims that this is a lower
With the passage of time, the nature of post-Saddam Iraq becomes clearer, as does the Bush administration’s lack of commitment to free-market principles. One example of this exists in the new Iraqi communications industry. The Iraqi communications ministry, headed by Haider Jawad al-Aubadi, has granted licenses to three mobile phone companies in
The Free Market 24, no. 1 (January 2004) “Deep in Debt, Caught in a Net.” This old English proverb concisely describes the financial condition of many Americans. Household debt is rising at an 8.8 percent annual rate, home mortgage debt at 14.2 percent. Total debt in the United States doubled from 1998 to 2002, from $16 trillion to $32 trillion
The Free Market 24, no. 2 (February 2004) There is a fly in the ointment of economic recovery: a dollar that just won’t seem to stop its fall. The impression that this trend portends something ominous is bolstered by the inverse relationship of the dollar’s value on international exchange and the price of gold. As the dollar has fallen in the
The Free Market 24, no. 2 (February 2004) I write this dutifully and joylessly in the manner of someone taking out the garbage or performing some other unpleasant task that’s been done before but which must be done once more. The Republicans have done it again. With their new Medicare bill, they’ve made government even bigger. This is not new to
The Free Market 24, no. ( 2004) Critics accuse libertarians of reveling in government failures. Yes and No. No one is pleased to see the destruction caused by government policies, whether small scale, as when a tighter regulation causes business failures, or large scale, as when wars destroy life for millions. The kernel of truth to the claim is
The Free Market 24, no. 2 (February 2004) In November of last year, a percentage of Louisiana residents made history by electing the first female governor. She is a statist with big plans for using government to shape everyone up, whether the citizens want to be shaped up or not. While some may view this development as a major, progressive
The Free Market 24, no. 3 (March 2004) The Washington Post’s Jonathan Weisman recently scored a front-page story about President Bush that would have galvanized DC conservatives three years earlier if the same words had been written about President Clinton. Writes Weisman: “Confounding President Bush’s pledges to rein in government growth,
The Free Market 24, no. 3 (March 2004) A common accusation against the Mises Institute is that it is obsessed with tracing social and economic problems to the state, and, in doing so, it oversimplifies the world. The state is not all bad, people say, and some of its actions yield positive results. It is not inconceivable, they say, that the
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.