A couple of years ago I posted an article concerning a traffic (anti)planner who thought road signs were a sign of poor design. A former student (Paul Poenicke) alerted me to this similar piece . Even though the guy explicitly says he’s not an anarchist, I think he’s doing it because in his mind anarchist=nut. Maybe someone should send him a copy
I’m sure most readers of this blog are familiar with Julian Simon’s wager with Paul “The Population Bomb” Ehrlich. For those who don’t know, Simon let Ehrich pick any five metals in 1980, and he bet that a basket of them would be cheaper (after adjusting for inflation) in 1990. Simon easily won, and Ehrlich’s boasts at the time of the wager are
I’ve started a discussion with a political science professor at my college, and I thought it might be helpful to get more views. (Now not only is this guy a colleague, but he’s also used Rothbard in one of his classes, so no spitballs please.) Below I’ve excerpted some things from his latest email, and then I give a quick response. This is the
Bill Anderson alerted me to the latest from Paul Craig Roberts. Now PCR keeps accusing us corporate shills of denying economic reality. How long will this persist? E.g. can we continue to eat the seed corn and sow our destruction for another five, ten, fifteen years? PCR has said elsewhere that the US will be a “Third World” economy by 2024. If
I came across this old thread in the Austrian Economics forum, and I thought some of the older folks who read this blog (but not the forum) might be interested in this description of what happens in a “Massively Multiple Online Role-Playing Game” (MMORPG) when the setup allows for injection of monetary units whenever someone’s agent kills a
I’ve been reading Nassim Taleb’s bestselling Fooled by Randomness. I think Austrians would really like this book. (Elsewhere Taleb has favorable things to say of Hayek.) Here’s his take on (mainstream) economics: What has gone with the development of economics as a science? Answer: There was a bunch of intelligent people who felt compelled to use
I’m glad “mainstream” media finally catches on to the fact that sanctions don’t work. They are worse than useless; they actually destroy a dictator’s political opposition. If you want to keep a dictator in power, blockade his
Sounds a little fishy, huh? Perhaps even illegal? What if I told you it was being done with money taken at gunpoint!! This is a very slippery slope indeed. If it’s okay to bribe people to vote, I don’t think it will be long before it’s deemed acceptable to punish people for not voting. (The article even talks about this.) I think the proposal is
The woman from whom we’re subletting clearly leans to the left when it comes to politics. The other day I started reading her copy of Al Franken’s LIES and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Believe it or not, Franken is a remarkably well-informed and clever writer. Not only did he surprise me with his analysis,
My wife came across this story. A 16-year-old with cancer wanted to discontinue his chemotherapy because it nauseated him. A concerned social worker got the State awarded partial custody and is now forcing the silly lad to do what’s good for him. I think I’m
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.