Economic debates seem to have their own growing seasons. For stretches of time they may disappear, only to reappear in later years covering the same old ground again. The debate about the effects of deficits on interest rates, though temporarily stunted by the frosty winters of the Clinton years with its visions of budget surpluses, is back with
It may still be too early to pen the postmortem on the New Economy. The final chapters on that episode are still being written. Nonetheless, Leon Levy’s discursive memoir, The Mind of Wall Street, is a first cut, perhaps inadvertently so, at disentangling some of the threads that helped create the great bull market of recent vintage. Levy is a
“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” - Shakespeare, Macbeth Humphrey Neill’s little gem of a book, The Art of Contrary Thinking , was groundbreaking in at least one respect. Published in 1954, it gave the English-speaking world a new word, at least according to the lexicographers of the Oxford English Dictionary .
The consultation of oracles, a practice long thought dead, continues today in many forms, perhaps in a more subtle and less institutionalized than during antiquity, but powerfully nonetheless. In Michael Wood’s new book, The Road to Delphi, he explores this “extended metaphorical afterlife of oracles”. Wood draws primarily from history and
“The world is in permanent monetary crisis,” Murray Rothbard once observed (in Making Economic Sense ), “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 this
Since the end of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971, the dollar has been an irredeemable currency, no longer defined or measured in terms of gold. Nonetheless, in an ironic twist, it has become the world’s dominant currency and the core reserve asset of central banks all over the world. It has replaced gold as an international currency. The
“This has been about one thing,” New York politician Eliot Spitzer said before a flock of television cameras at the New York Stock Exchange. “It has been about ensuring that retail investors get a fair shake.” So went the crowd-pleasing explanation for why the state’s just re-elected Attorney General, along with federal regulators, reached an
Media elites have been debating the merits of President Bush’s proposed economic stimulus program actively, but not sensibly. That is, the debate itself is seriously misguided. The title of this program reveals the flawed nature of this debate. Since we are supposedly in the thralls of an economic slowdown, we need to stimulate the economy so as
The specter of union unrest recently haunted Manhattan, where local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians squared off against management, resulting in a four-day shutdown of Broadway musicals. The confrontation concerned this industry that union leaders described as an “important economic engine for the city of New York .” . Though the
The popular press has adopted a more optimistic tone regarding economic conditions. The reasons for this are clear. It appears that the current recovery is picking up pace. Recent reports indicate that second quarter GDP for this year increased by 3.3%, instead of the earlier 3.1% estimate. This is more than double the GDP growth rate from 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.