After a federal district judge recently ordered the prohibition of all new oil drilling along the California coast, an anti-drilling spokesperson declared the ruling “a victory for the California coast.” This is an interesting, if terribly confusing, notion. There was no fight between the California coast and anyone, not even between the coast and
Let us examine the tragic story out of Florida of the young boy whose arm was severed by a shark and then reattached, after the shark was killed by a ranger. MSNBC describes the dramatic events: Jessie was attacked by a seven-foot bull shark while playing knee-deep in water at Gulf Islands National Seashore near Fort Pickens, in the Florida
On Earth Day, environmentalists again made appearances on the news, predicting that global warming will mean the end of life as we know it. As more Americans become aware that anthropogenic ( caused or produced by humans ) global warming is a hoax, the people who make their incomes from scaring us must increase their efforts. For those readers
Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. –President George W. Bush in his speech to America on Sept. 20, 2001 For several years now, I have been watching one particular terrorist group launch attacks in this country
Canada has more fresh water than practically any other nation on the face of the earth. Yet Canada is in the midst of a summer drought. Parched brown fields are reported from coast to coast, and agricultural crops face devastation if the rains don’t come soon. This is not the first summer, however, that Canadians have faced water shortages; it
Last summer, lightning struck and killed an enormous pine tree on one side of my backyard. At about the same time, voracious pine-bark beetles girdled and killed an equally impressive pine tree on the other side. Now bereft of needles, these two arboreal giants pose a potential threat to my house, should they fall at just the right angle. In the
The Free Market 19, no. 3 (March 2001) The state of California has experienced a meltdown in its electric power system. For months, the system has repeatedly run at or near the overload point, necessitating brownouts and even rolling blackouts. Incredibly, the fiasco has been blamed on deregulation and the free market. Economist Paul Krugman,
The Free Market 19, no. 7 (July 2001) The work of Adam Smith was truly epoch-making in the development of economic thought. In his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations , which appeared in 1776, he explained the law of supply and demand: “The market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the proportion
Environmentalism is the product of the collapse of socialism in a world that is ignorant of the contributions of Ludwig von Mises—a world that does not know what he has said that would logically explain the collapse of socialism and, even more importantly, the success of capitalism. Because of ignorance of the contributions of von Mises, the great
Environmentalism, and its boa constrictor-like, strangling grip on energy production, is taking an increasingly visible toll on production and the quality of life in the United States. Recurring power blackouts in California and skyrocketing oil and natural gas prices are the most obvious symptoms. Nevertheless, the environmentalists seem utterly
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.