When Paul Krugman isn’t writing nonsensical columns praising welfare statist intervention in Canada or France , he can sometimes write interesting columns. His latest one on the housing bubble was quite good. Although he doesn’t acknowledge that Fed policy is responsible for it this time (which would mean a implicit endorsement of the very
In recent months, certain Bush supporters have been gloating over the recent surge in federal tax revenues and the resulting reduction in the budget deficit, claiming that it vindicates the Laffer curve. There are however some problems with their position. First of all, why would a libertarian or small-government conservative be happy about rising
Today it was reported in the Swedish business news paper Dagens Industri that Foreign Direct Investments in Sweden fell to zero during the first half of this year. It would be interesting to see how a certain Paul Krugman explains that. Last month, as you may remember, Krugman made a big deal about a decision by Toyota to build a car factory in
Yesterday the Federal Reserve, seemingly appropriately exactly 5 years since the peak of the tech stock bubble came out with its quarterly flow of funds report . In the section on debt levels we can see that several psychological “landmarks” for debt levels were reached during the fourth quarter of 2004. For example for the first time did:
After my article on the Heritage Foundation’s Economic freedom index I received a lot of e-mail, almost all positive. I was actually somewhat disappointed (but not completely surprised) that even though I know people associated with the index reads this web page no one even tried to defend the index against the arguments I made, or alternatively
The issue of the so-called core inflation rate has been dealt with repeatedly on this site, by me, by Murray Rothbard and others. Here is one funny way of looking at it , uttered by Bill Davisson managing director of Hartford Investment Management, when commenting on the view that while oil prices are rising sharply, there’s no need to worry
A few days ago, Hong Kong published first quarter GDP growth , with growth being a impressive 6% (although it is somewhat less impressive if one adjusts for a worsening terms of trade) higher than in just about all other rich countries something which might be related to Hong Kong being the freest economy in the world. Anyway, when examining the
The president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, is “perplexed” that the Euro-zone economy is growing slowly despite low interest rates. Trichet was also perplexed that, with bond yields at their lowest level since at least World War I and inflation-adjusted short-term rates at zero, growth in the 12-member euro zone was modest and
Global Military Spending Tops $1T in 2004 : STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- For the first time since the Cold War, global military spending exceeded $1 trillion in 2004, nearly half of it by the United States, a prominent European think tank said Tuesday. As military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism continue, the world spent $1.035
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.