Alan Greenspan has again lowered the price of short-term credit (the interest rate that he controls) in an effort to keep the economy from falling into recession. Rather than speculate on whether this will work, I’d like to raise a different set of questions. What is it about our monetary system that permits Greenspan and a handful of others to
In casting for the almost three-hour epic, “Pearl Harbor,” Hollywood forgot seventeen-year-old Lawrence McCutcheon, a U.S. Navy seaman from Gridley, California. No character in the movie portrays McCutcheon, the first of 2,476 Americans killed on that fateful day, December 7, 1941. The young patriot was serving his country high up in the
President Bush is right to recognize the fruitful role of America’s private, faith-based “armies of compassion.” For many reasons, such groups are far more effective in solving social problems—poverty, homelessness, and illiteracy, to name a few—than are government programs and bureaucracies. They treat the whole person, which means they get to
The ideas of the economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong,” wrote John Maynard Keynes, “are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.” Keynes was wise to include the phrase, “both when they are right and when they are wrong.” It’s all too true that good
For a society that has fed, clothed, housed, cared for, informed, entertained, and otherwise enriched more people at higher levels than any in the history of the planet, there sure is a lot of groundless guilt in America. Manifestations of that guilt abound. The example that peeves me the most is the one we often hear from well-meaning
Under prodding from agitators and activists, the Securities and Exchange Commission is considering a proposal that would reduce the investment performance of mutual funds. If adopted, the measure would impose harsher disclosure requirements on portfolio managers under federal law. Instead of reporting their holdings semiannually, as is current
Activists with the same agenda as anti-globalization rioters and eco-terrorists have set their sights on the nation’s business schools. According to an October 30 report in the Wall Street Journal (Alsop, Ronald. “Corporations Still Put Profits First, But Social Concerns Gain Ground.” The Wall Street Journal 30 Oct. 2001: B12) the World
The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs. If one abolishes man’s freedom to determine his own consumption, one takes all freedoms away. The naive advocates of government interference with consumption...unwittingly support the case of
Perhaps it’s inevitable that a good magazine sooner or later really blows it on a particular issue. A relatively recent and shocking column entitled “ Will History Repeat Itself? “ in the August 6 issue of Forbes is a good example. Written by Stephen Manes, a close watcher of the software industry, the purpose of the article is to briefly
In Defense of Free Capital Markets: The Case Against a New International Financial Architecture. By David DeRosa. (Bloomberg Press: 2001) $19.56. David DeRosa’s latest book, In Defense of Free Capital Markets , has been hailed by such eminent economists as Milton Friedman, Anna Schwartz, and Steve Hanke as one of the best libertarian
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.