I don’t think I’ve pushed this before, but “ Master Resource ,” a new free market energy blog, is in full swing. Not everyone posting there is necessarily an Austrian (though some of us are), but everybody is definitely aware of the problems of government intervention. More important, the posters really know what they are talking about. In
As many readers here probably already know, Chicago economist John Cochrane wrote a blistering reply to Paul Krugman’s NYT Magazine piece on what’s wrong with the economics profession. When I read Cochrane’s piece, I was dismayed because many of his arguments to defend himself against Krugman’s attacks would just as well “prove” that the Austrian
The Free Market 27, no. 4 (April 2009) In a March 11 Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan tried to exonerate himself from the housing boom and bust. Even though more and more analysts are realizing that Greenspan’s low interest rates fueled the bubble, the ex-maestro himself uses statistics to defend his
[This article is excerpted from chapter 16 of Human Action . Robert Murphy has written a study guide for this chapter, available in HTML and PDF . This article follows “Chapter XVI. Prices, Part 1.” ] Competitive prices are the outcome of a complete adjustment of the sellers to the demand of the consumers. Under the competitive price the whole
The mainstream reaction to the Bernard Madoff scandal was inevitable. Whenever a government regulatory agency proves itself to be incredibly incompetent or corrupt, the respectable media swoop in to declare that the “free market” has failed and the agency in question obviously needs more money and power. Whether it’s the Department of Education’s
Wily competitors have known for ages that if you can’t win the game, you can simply change the rules. Now, during normal economic times, if somebody recommended that the government borrow a trillion dollars and spend it on anything that moves, most economists (as well as common sense) would say, “That’s nuts.” So one would think that especially in
Although many free-market economists were aghast that Paul Krugman won the Nobel ( Memorial ) Prize in Economics, I have come to realize that he is every bit as brilliant as that august award indicates. For some time now, Krugman has said we are in “depression economics” mode , where the normal rules of scarcity and tradeoffs don’t apply . In this
Robert E. Lucas, Jr. Lately the Mises Daily may have given the impression that we just bash Paul Krugman . In the interest of balance, today I will cast aspersions on another Nobel laureate, the Chicago School economist Robert Lucas. As is typical among many “promarket” economists, the undeniably sharp Lucas inexplicably sees no problem with
A lot of people get annoyed with Austrian economists because they tend to be so dogmatic (we prefer the term consistent ) and because they cloak their strictly economic claims with self-righteousness (we prefer the term morality ). After a good Austrian bashing of the latest call to steal taxpayer money and waste it on something that will make a
In working on my forthcoming book dealing with the Great Depression, I noticed something intriguing about the discount rate of the Fed. Oh wait, I should first clarify — I’m talking about the New York Federal Reserve Bank, because the Fed banks had more autonomy in the beginning, and so you couldn’t talk of “the Fed’s” discount rate. What I
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.