While talk today of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis that touched off the Great Recession tends to center mainly around the failure of regulators or bad individual actors at the level of banks and lenders, we should not forget that it was Fed policy from 1993 to 2005 that created the crucial conditions for the ultimate collapse. Put simply, the
Beginning in the early 1700s, a hitherto rather peripheral group of Native Americans called the Comanche swept into a vast area comprising much of what is now the southwestern United States, creating an empire that spanned parts of the modern states of Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas. In the process they dispossessed rival Native
They can start with as little as a rumor; whether fact or fiction, some new information emerges that spooks depositors or investors, or otherwise convinces them that the institution to which they have entrusted their money isn’t going to be able to cover its debts or obligations. Predictably, those who had deposited or invested their money at the
What asset price bubbles are is fairly uncontroversial, even if a fast and hard definition is elusive. At their most basic, bubbles are said to exist when a sharp upward departure in the price of an asset, from its historic or otherwise reasonably expected value, occurs over a relatively brief period of time, however defined. These dramatic, often
Despite President Biden’s criticism of virtually every aspect of the U.S. establishment he has long been a part of, and whose policies he frequently played a principal part in authoring, as well as his stated intention of enacting sweeping reforms during his presidency, one part of the U.S. establishment is clearly safe from any such revisitation
While the Chinese regime’s program of financing and conducting large-scale infrastructure programs in Asia and Africa has been cited by Western observers as an attempt by the regime’s leadership to boost its geopolitical clout and strategic partnerships, a look at China’s history and domestic situation suggest a different primary motivation: class
Despite economist Thomas Sowell’s laconically phrased observation that the real minimum wage is zero, progressive elements within the Democratic coalition are likely to push for increasing the federal minimum wage once Biden takes office. While whether or not to raise the minimum wage is therefore ultimately a political question, a school of
Mientras que hoy se habla de la crisis de las hipotecas subprime de 2008 que desencadenó la Gran Recesión tiende a centrarse principalmente en el fracaso de los reguladores o de los malos actores individuales a nivel de bancos y prestamistas, no debemos olvidar que fue la política de la Reserva Federal de 1993 a 2005 la que creó las condiciones
A principios del siglo XVIII, un grupo de nativos americanos hasta entonces bastante periférico, los comanches, invadió una vasta zona que comprendía gran parte del actual suroeste de Estados Unidos, creando un imperio que abarcaba parte de los actuales estados de Colorado, Texas, Nuevo México, Oklahoma y Kansas. En el proceso, despojaron a las
Unas cuantas veces, un rumor puede ser el comienzo: pueden comenzar con tan sólo un rumor; ya sea real o ficticio, surge alguna información nueva que asusta a los depositantes o inversores, o que les convence de que la institución a la que han confiado su dinero no va a ser capaz de cubrir sus deudas u obligaciones. Como era de esperar, los que
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.