The Free Market 26, no. 10 (October 2005) I n the first line of his book, Planning for Freedom , Ludwig von Mises, the famed Austrian economist, observed “Planning is socialism.” I will admit that my first acquaintance with government planners was a planning class in my Master’s program, where I was given the party line about how important it
The Free Market 26, no. 12 (December 2005) Supply and demand have been allowed to work—at least in a limited way—in energy markets, resulting in ups and downs in gasoline prices. Strong demand coupled with regulatory supply restrictions that were worsened by several hurricanes caused gasoline prices to go up. Then as hurricane-damaged refineries
My wife and I, like yuppies we are, signed up for blood cord storage with NECBB when our baby was born a couple years ago. I get a bill every year for the annual storage fee. It’s usually $99. This year I received a letter from NECBB, stating that the fee has increased from $99 to $124 a year, since they were threatened with a patent infringement
(Sorry, that’s as clever a title as I could muster). The rationing of oil. Michael Ruppert, writing in From the Wilderness , tells us that the International Energy Agency has “dusted off plans for rationing to be imposed (with the full authority of government and the UN) in nations which had signed the original UN treaty in 1974 or joined later.”
From a Der Spiegel interview with Kenyan (not Keynesian) economics expert James Shikwati: SPIEGEL : Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa... Shikwati : ... for God’s sake, please just stop. SPIEGEL : Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty. Shikwati :
Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) proposed a protectionist amendment to energy legislation that is designed to derail CNOOC Ltd’s acquisition of Unocal. Pombo’s proposal “would require the Energy Department to identify all of the energy assets China has sought to invest in [and] review whether China’s investments in energy assets have been done on
Krugman seems to think that the French are better off overall because they work less and spend more time with their families. He grants that this makes them poorer but “to the extent that the French have less income than we do, it’s mainly a matter of choice.” Not really. Krugman must believe that we need government to tell us to spend time with
In the September 2005 issue of Corporate Legal Times , the article “High Court Set To Tackle IP Tying In Antitrust Cases” discusses the upcoming Supreme Court case Illinois Tool Works v. Independent Ink , in which the Court will decide whether there should be a presumption of “market power” in antitrust “tying cases” in the case of a patented
I received the following interesting pamphlet along with my monthly Verizon bill (which they were kind enough not to pad with bogus charges for once). Is the Boston Talk Party forthcoming? FEDERAL EXCISE TAX ON COMMUNICATIONS — ”Tax on Talk” Ever wonder what the “Federal Excise Tax” is on your monthly wireless bill? Well, think of it as a very
Stephan Kinsella has cast doubt on the legitimacy of intellectual property (PDF). Today, Slashdot describes moves by the U.S. to establish a global intellectual-property plan . Murray Rothbard argued that (real) property rights were universal but should be locally enforced . Do these creepy global initiatives (like the “Global Intellectual
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.