An excellent new book from Edward Chancellor, The Price of Time , sets out to explain both the theory and history of interest rates across five millennia and countless cultures. The theory is frequently bungled by economists; the history is frequently glossed over by historians. But thankfully Mr. Chancellor is up to the task. He is an excellent
Does cheap money and credit make us richer? Does more money and credit create more stuff, or better stuff? Do they make us happier and more productive? Or do these twin forces actually distort the economy, misallocate resources, and degrade us as people? These are fundamental questions in an age of monetary hedonism. It is time we began to ask and
Does cheap money and credit make us richer? Does more money and credit create more stuff, or better stuff? Do they make us happier and more productive? Or do these twin forces actually distort the economy, misallocate resources, and degrade us as people? These are fundamental questions in an age of monetary hedonism. It is time we began to ask and
Some of you may know the name Alex Berenson, the former New York Times journalist who comes from a left-liberal background. He has been absolutely fearless and tireless on Twitter over the past eighteen months, documenting the overreach and folly of covid policy—and the mixed reality behind official assurances on everything from social
Today Donald Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States. American voters rejected the devil they know so well — Hillary Clinton — for the devil they don’t. Why they did so, and how Trump prevailed, is the biggest political story of our age. But the rejection of progressive hubris, what Friedrich Hayek called the “fatal conceit” of those
Oh, what a difference a few years make. After the Crash of ‘08, the Fed entered a period of “extraordinary” monetary policy marked by large scale purchases of Treasuries and other (worse) securities from commercial banks. This process, termed quantitative easing, began in November 2008 as a supposedly temporary measure to provide liquidity (and
Populism is the order of the day. And one particularly ripe populist issue is the Federal Reserve, which Americans quite reasonably think is complicit with Wall Street banks and the Treasury Department in creating an elite class that makes far more money than it should. While the details of how this occurs mechanically are complicated, it’s no
Perhaps no economic pronouncement in history has been anticipated, discussed, predicted, dissected, and reported like the Federal Reserve’s momentous decision today not to raise interest rates. The outpouring of relief witnessed today by the financial press is nothing short of cathartic. Fear and anxiety, built up over months, is replaced by
Un nuevo y excelente libro de Edward Chancellor, El precio del tiempo , se propone explicar tanto la teoría como la historia de los tipos de interés a lo largo de cinco milenios e innumerables culturas. Los economistas suelen hacer chapuzas con la teoría, y los historiadores suelen pasar por alto la historia. Pero afortunadamente el Sr. Chancellor
¿El dinero barato y el crédito nos hacen más ricos? ¿Más dinero y crédito crean más cosas, o mejores cosas? ¿Nos hacen más felices y productivos? ¿O en realidad estas fuerzas gemelas distorsionan la economía, asignan mal los recursos y nos degradan como personas? Son preguntas fundamentales en una época de hedonismo monetario. Es hora de 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.