It is not unusual to hear about the virtues of hard money and the evils of the paper variety at a gold conference. However, Austrian business cycle theory is rarely cited given the audience is only interested in hot stock tips. But at the Las Vegas Hard Assets investment conference held last week at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, the Austrians were
What do you suppose the prospects are for a single mother who drops out of high school? Big government types point to these women as a shining example of a group that any rich, compassionate society needs to take care of. “What would happen if we turn our backs on these women and their families?” “We can’t let them fall through the cracks.”
Local government growth-management planning has been a bone of contention during debates in Nevada between Democratic gubernatorial candidates state Sen. Dina Titus and Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson. Titus championed a bill in the 1997 Legislature that would have limited development in Clark County. The measure, based upon restrictions used in
The price of gold’s collapse of $44 one day last week prompted a quick call to Camino Coin. Sales on gold have been few and far between this year and the sudden move below $600 per ounce was too good of a buying opportunity to pass up. However, in addition to selling me cheaper insurance against the coming dollar collapse, my guy at Camino was
In 484 BC, Herodotus, the father of written history, was born in the ancient city of Halikarnassos, known today as Bodrum, Turkey. During the winter, Bodrum is a sleepy town of 35,000, but come summertime the population explodes as half a million tourists from all over the world come to enjoy the beaches, boating, history, shopping and nightlife
Money is said to be the mother’s milk of politics. And for Las Vegas politicians the local strip club industry has provided a rich vein of cash that has been voraciously mined by politicians at all levels. Ironically, while the G-Sting political corruption trials ongoing testimony provided an avalanche of sordid details about local commissioners
Countrywide Mortgage CEO Angelo Mozilo believes that the “housing market officially turned south in January,” according to Banc Investment Daily, and that some overheated markets may see prices plunge by up to 40 percent. Mozilo mentioned Las Vegas as one of those risky markets. But nary a discouraging word was spoken at the Las Vegas Annual
[Doug French was a special guest lecturer at the 2006 Mises University . You can hear his informal talk, during an evening session, here .] Given the conditions here in Auburn, I think it appropriate that we honor a man who is critical to Mises University. A guy named Willis Haviland Carrier. No, he wasn’t an Austrian Economist, but he is
Imagine an America when a writer occupied the rarified air in the public consciousness that movie stars and athletes do today. A man who believed first and foremost in freedom, writing: “I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty.” It was the 1920s and H.L. Mencken was both America’s
Whenever I engage anyone in a discussion about getting rid of government, the first question I’m posed with is: “what about the roads?” “How would that work? I mean, if private enterprise owned the roads, then the road owners would jack up the price to point where we couldn’t leave our homes.” As if that’s what private firms do: raise prices to
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.