In response to the meltdown of financial institutions, unprecedented power has been unleashed by the federal government. Between actions by the Federal Reserve, the TARP, guarantees made by the FDIC, and other direct bailouts, the total comes to nearly $8 trillion. That’s over 30 times the inflation-adjusted cost of the S&L bailout, according to
[Book Review: Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach • Random House • 2001 • 288 pages] “The boom produces impoverishment,” wrote Ludwig von Mises in Human Action . “But still more disastrous are its moral ravages. It makes people despondent and dispirited. The more optimistic they were under the illusory prosperity of the boom, the greater is their
A punk economy is doing what legislators around the country could never do: shrink state and local governments. California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a fiscal emergency because his state is $40 billion in the red and may actually be completely busted by February. He even “ordered state officials to prepare to furlough and lay
Eric Coffin captured the overall bear market funk that permeated this year’s Hard Asset Investment Conference in Las Vegas when he opened his presentation with, “This market stinks. No really, it stinks.” Coffin, co-proprietor of the Hard Rock Analyst, didn’t have many stock picks, so he suggested that attendees “drink heavily” and “don’t get out
What happens on the Las Vegas Strip drives the rest of Las Vegas. Not a catchy ad line, just a fact. The hopes and dreams of hundreds, if not thousands of small and not-so-small businesses rest on whether the titans of the casino industry invest wisely, attracting millions of people to town so they may leave billions of dollars behind. The Mob did
[This article originally appeared in Liberty Watch .] It probably comes from being at middle age. A person starts wondering about things like: What’s life all about? Why are we here? What is happiness? How do we achieve satisfaction? (You know, what Mick Jagger couldn’t get.) Thankfully, there are people out there studying the brain to see what
With little fanfare, Beijing airport opened an additional new terminal last week. The terminal’s 2-mile long concourse is divided into three sections and connected by a shuttle train. The addition will boost capacity at the airport to 82 million compared with the 52 million who used the airport last year. The press reports that the existing
NASCAR has been one the hardest tickets in Las Vegas to secure, selling out six straight times prior to Sunday with attendance reaching 155,000 last year. Even Saturday’s Sam’s Town 300 race attracted 110,000, the third year in a row with attendance for the penultimate event reaching six-figures. But this year 10,000 fewer seats were made
The writing side of the Liberty Watch crew recently convened for dinner and, of course, politics was the conversation of choice. Ron Paul supporters dominated the table. In fact, the expectant father is lobbying at home to name his newest after Ron. However his wife, the UNLV professor with child, announced that she is a John Edwards fan, and she
Comedian Jay Leno recently had a bit about pilots wanting passengers to take on the responsibility of subduing terrorists on the plane. “First I had to start pumping my own gas, then I had to scan my own groceries at the checkout counter, now in order to fly, we must be responsible for making sure terrorists don’t hijack the planes?” Yes, a cruel
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.