The following article is from the April issue of The Free Market, available to members of the Mises Institute. Debt is an institution in American government, long established and widespread. A cursory glance at debt statistics will quickly show that there has been a lull in the truth about debt, namely, that it cannot grow indefinitely at the rate
For a government as vast and powerful as America’s, $60 billion is hardly a substantial amount of money, considering it boasts a large populace and economy to plunder; such a sum is a mere three-fifths of what the U.S. Army alone requested for fiscal year 2005. In the case of the Philippines, an erstwhile vassal of America, $60bn is an exorbitant
Space travel has been one center of interest of governments around the world for the last five decades. As a result of an unending interest in nationalized technological advancement, research and development, incomparable military capabilities, and scientific endeavors into the unknown, bureaucracies have conned entire governments, if not much of
Bush officials have suggested that their “war on terror” will last many decades. Less than a month after 9-11, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld compared it to the “50-years, plus or minus” of Cold War with the Soviet Union . In March 2002, Secretary of State Powell warned that the war “may never be finished, not in our lifetime.” A month later,
That war is not productive may seem self-evident to Misesians but it is not to the “educated” public who have been taught that World War II ended the Depression and that deficit spending (of whatever kind it doesn’t matter) spurs economic growth. Americans show not the slightest awareness that every dollar spent on the ongoing Afghan and Iraqi
An old English saying perfectly applies to election promises made by the Presidential candidates: “Vows made in a storm are forgotten in calms.” The loser need not give second thought to his promises and the winner usually is prevented from living up to the promises he made in the election storm. In his brief victory speech President Bush echoed
A recent NRO article by Larry Kudlow illustrates the absurdities to which analysts can be driven in order to defend a political party. The piece opens with the line, “Is there more sanity in the federal budget than people think?” Such a question should prepare the reader for some fancy footwork, and Kudlow doesn’t disappoint. First Kudlow
The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment contains the clear language that no person should “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” For most people, things like highways, police stations, and courthouses come to mind as examples of “public
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.