Austerity works. We know what it is and don’t like it, but it works. It usually means cutting your consumption and spending, paying down your debts, pawning assets, and working more hours to restore your economic situation. You might invoke “austerity” because you lost your job, your house burned down, or you have an unexpected child on the way.
[ This article is a selection from The Skyscraper Curse: And How Austrian Economists Predicted Every Major Economic Crisis of the Last Century .] The 1960s and 70s were precarious times for the Austrian school. Ludwig von Mises was very old, retired, and would die in 1973 at the age of ninety-two. Friedrich Hayek was also retired and ensconced at
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome “Jay” Powell, recently sent mysterious shock waves into financial markets with comments that suggested that Fed rate cuts might come sooner than expected. Stock and bond markets took this as a good sign. They were already in a Santa Claus rally and broke out to new highs for the year. The interest rate on
During the 1960s, when Keynesian economics came to truly dominate the economics profession, there was a large influx of these “new economists” into government. The disastrous results included the “keynesianisation” of the economy and what is best described as an economic depression lasted throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s. Like the
Economists of an Austrian bent just can’t take off their analytical spectacles, even when undertaking simple life activities like driving from here to there. Fortunately, this unusual way of looking at events and institutions yields fascinating results, as with a recent commute that nicely illustrated the universal truth that governments cause
Unhinged 2.0 This article originally ran on Tuesday, February 17, 2009. It was near the low of the last stock-market cycle and the economy had endured a year of unprecedented government interventions. The Federal Reserve had made a series of bailouts, Detroit had been bailed out, and we had the various stimulus programs. These measures were sure
Here is a forecast of Gross Domestic Product based on the Austrian notion of the money supply and its growth rate. Jeffrey Peshut shows that Real GDP peaks with a variable lag to the growth rate of the True Money Supply. In other words we should expect Real GDP growth to peak from 1 to 3 years after the True Money Supply growth rate peaks. He
[Editor’s Note: This is an old interview from the Harvard Political Review , reprinted here for the use of our readers and students.] Mark Thornton is an Austrian economist and senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian academic organization dedicated to scholarship of the Austrian School as inspired by Ludwig von Mises. In the
While the headline numbers for the economy, including the stock markets and the unemployment rate, look very good, a “real” look at the economy produces an image of a dead end economy. For example, if you look at Gross Domestic Product in the US economy from the beginning of 2008 to the present and adjust it for inflation and population—a period
Auburn, Alabama, is featured on the front cover of today’s Wall Street Journal . I was interviewed extensively for the story, but was not mentioned. The story is about the relationship between state universities and increased manufacturing jobs. It turns out that my input did not fit into the story. The thesis of the article was that college
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.