Through their power to control banking, central banks are unnecessary barriers to commerce. Even those who have spent their entire lives in banking, often in positions of great importance and responsibility, assume that cooperative exchange of goods and services requires a central bank’s oversight. But consider a typical trade, whether foreign or
When Britons voted on June 23, 2016 on whether or not to leave the EU there was no discussion of a “hard or soft Brexit”. These terms were invented after Brexit passed by a surprisingly large margin and the mostly anti-Brexit Tory Party government, especially its leadership, decided that it needed to negotiate the terms of leaving. Brexit
A few years ago, shortly after the 2008 subprime lending disaster, the Fed sent a public relations team around the country to conduct supposedly “educational sessions” about how the Fed works and the wonderful things it does. The public was invited, and there was a question and answer session at the end of the presentation. One such session was
Perhaps the most destructive premise of modern, mainstream economics is that a central bank-induced monetary/credit expansion can cause an economy to grow without adverse consequences. Let’s be perfectly clear from the start: this policy has been tried by many central banks many times and all such attempts have led to economic disaster. The latest
What causes the seemingly unfounded confidence in socialism we encounter more and more in the news media and among political activists? In the Extinction Rebellion movement, for example, activists are quite certain they have learned that there is an alternative to markets as the means to economic prosperity. It’s a means that does not involve
A tariff is a tax on imports that is used to satisfy a policy goal. Before the federal income tax became law in 1913, the US federal government was funded almost entirely by tariffs and excise taxes. An excise tax is a tax on a good that is produced in the US. The best example of a current excise tax is the federal tax on gasoline. The most
Cuando los británicos votaron el 23 de junio de 2016 sobre si abandonar o no la UE, no hubo discusión sobre un «Brexit duro o suave». Estos términos se inventaron después de que el Brexit pasara por un margen sorprendentemente grande y el gobierno del Partido Tory, en su mayoría anti-Brexit, especialmente su liderazgo, decidió que tenía que
Hace unos años, poco después del desastre de los préstamos subprime de 2008, la Reserva Federal envió un equipo de relaciones públicas a todo el país para realizar supuestas «sesiones educativas» sobre cómo funciona la Reserva Federal y las cosas maravillosas que hace. Se invitó al público y hubo una sesión de preguntas y respuestas al final de la
Tal vez la premisa más destructiva de la economía moderna y dominante es que una expansión monetaria y crediticia inducida por el banco central puede hacer que una economía crezca sin consecuencias adversas. Seamos claros desde el principio: esta política ha sido probada muchas veces por muchos bancos centrales y todos estos intentos han conducido
¿Qué causa la confianza aparentemente infundada en el socialismo que encontramos cada vez más en los medios de comunicación y entre los activistas políticos? En el movimiento de la Rebelión de la Extinción , por ejemplo, los activistas están bastante seguros de que han aprendido que existe una alternativa a los mercados como medio para la
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.