The Free Market 26, no. 1 (January 2005) On October 4, 2004, the privately funded SpaceShip-One climbed to an altitude of over 70 miles, clinching the $10 million “X Prize.” Many analysts were excited by the prospects for commercial space travel, and the day when orbital or even interplanetary flights would be affordable for the average
The Free Market 26, no. 7 (July 2005) The Bush administration has wrapped up yet another big campaign to bolster support for its Social Security proposal. The latest development is Bush’s suggestion to index benefits for wealthy retirees to prices (rather than wages), which is effectively a cut in promised benefits. The proposal disappointed
The Free Market 26, no. 9 (September 2005) I f you are like me, you love Austrian economics—the logic, the rigor, the explanatory power. But we all know that this is not the usual approach to economics taken at the university level. If you can’t attend the Mises University, where can you go to study the subject systematically? Over the summer, I
A discussion on a private email list brought up a familiar topic: When is it permissible for self-described anarchists (let’s restrict ourselves here to anarcho-capitalists) to take government money? This is a tricky question, and I have yet to see someone offer a satisfactory list of necessary and sufficient conditions. Usually when an-caps argue
Britain’s National Association of Pension Funds wants a Citizen’s Pension (the report is here ). Every UK resident over State Pension Age should get £105 a week from the State. Linked to average earnings, it would provide “adequacy, simplicity, inclusion, encouragement to save, efficiency, and certainty”. That’s really going some. Let’s start with
There’s no point in writing up another article on Larry Kudlow’s recent analysis of Bush’s proposed budget, since my points would be the same as the last time I did it. As before, there is the trick of removing big-ticket items in order to make the rate of growth of everything else low: Beyond this important threshold, Bush deserves credit for his
Virgin has cure for bad dates : With Valentine’s Day looming, a mobile phone company in Australia has come to the rescue with a service offering an escape from the date from hell. All a person has to do is discreetly dial three numbers and then hang up without saying a word. “Virgin Mobile will call them back a minute later with a perfect excuse
In contrast to all the platitudes about sacrifice, this general loves his job. What saddens me about this episode is not that he would say such things; no kidding plenty of the macho guys in the military think it’s fun to shoot people—look at the games in any arcade. No, what depresses me is that if this general had said, say, “I have never been
In my seminar on spontaneous order, the topic today was road design. One of the articles discussed experiments with variable rush hour pricing for certain lanes (in California, I think). The idea is that there is always a certain lane that will have 65 mph travel, but it might cost $20 to use it at 6 pm. Anyway, I explained other applications of
Most of us are familiar with the feud between Rothbard and Rand, and of other aspects of Rand’s personal life that make great fodder for jokes. There are also plenty of self-described Objectivists who advance (what Rothbardians consider to be) silly arguments on the necessity of government. But after discussing these issues with two Objectivists
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.