It is near impossible to imagine any private company not enjoying the “problem” of high demand for its products and services. Yet there are some products that are repeatedly reported as shortages. There is one thing these products have in common: government intervention, typically in the form of price controls. This is especially the case with
Al Gore may be dull-witted, and his speech slow and stiff. But despite this pathetic demeanor, Gore is a formidable defender of government. His program to “reinvent” government was a brilliant maneuver to hide a massive increase in government size and power in a guise of phony cuts in government employees and improved government efficiency. Gore
The Free Market 18, no. 1 (January 2000) Jean-Claude Castex is surrounded by miracles, or at least the quest for miracles. As the official feutier, or tender of religious candles, at Lourdes, the spot in France where the Virgin Mary appeared in a grotto to a poor miller’s daughter in the nineteenth century, Castex sees, on average, some 14,000
This week’s internet-fueled Outrage of the Week is the case of Harvard attorney Ben Edelman who has insisted on “notifying the authorities” to punish a small restaurant for “overcharging” the professor to the tune of four dollars. Boston.com reported on the case, posting the full email exchange . Now, the professor has received the sort of
Due to Obamacare, my health plan has become something other than insurance. It is now, for the most part, nothing other than a wealth transfer scheme to benefit the politically connected over others. In order to identify the difference between health insurance and government-mandated health care coverage , we can look to Human Action , in which
Last week, former Secretary of Education and US Senator Lamar Alexander wrote in the Wall Street Journal that a college degree is both affordable and an excellent investment. He repeated the usual talking point about how a college degree increases lifetime earnings by a million dollars, “on average.” That part about averages is perhaps the most
In August 1971, President Richard Nixon enacted comprehensive wage-and-price controls in a misguided effort to contain inflationary pressures. (Contrary to the faulty memories of some Americans, this initial round of controls wasn’t due to the OPEC oil embargo , which didn’t occur until 1973.) Free-market economists like to use the long lines at
President Barack Obama signed the Agricultural Act of 2014 into law on February 7, 2014. The legislation becomes law later than anticipated given the usual timing for farm bills, which typically work their way through the Congress every five years. The last major farm bill was passed in May 2008, and key provisions of that bill were at the center
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act focused the attention of Americans on government regulation as few issues have. However, they should have paid attention decades earlier because states have been eating away like termites at freedom in the healthcare insurance market for decades. The PPACA adds little to existing state regulations.
Mises Daily Monday by Matt Battaglioli: Many advocates for socialized medicine point to the World Health Organization’s claim that US healthcare ranks below dozens of other countries. But these rankings are biased in favor of cheap health care over quality health
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.