The circus is coming to your town soon. Maybe, I’m getting old, but I just can’t get very excited about the clowns anymore. Yup, it’s political season again and those bothersome polls, still lusting for the votes that put or keep themselves and their pals in office, will be in our faces until the nonsense is over. Time for the same tired two
Lenin once dismissed the question of how socialism would work by pointing to the workings of the post office. Socialism, he said , means only to “To organize the whole economy on the lines of the postal service.” Well, I tried my best to avoid this pocket of socialism, but it was just unavoidable. I trained for it as though I would be in a life or
Rome was a republic that once knew the rule of law. It acquired an empire by accident. It became an empire in which one man reigned and wars were endless as they were in almost every empire. The Roman Senate ended up losing most of its powers. The United States was born a republic. Yet our nation, ignoring the warnings of the founding fathers and
It was a familiar time. It was a time of a Republican administration waging an unpopular war. It was a war some Democrats said they opposed but seemed to do very little to stop. Inflation was starting to become a problem. America’s allies thought our president’s economic and political polices were flawed and they were often ridiculed.
Did you hear the recent giant sigh of collective relief from the securities industry? It was the sound of those securities professionals who, for now, dodged a regulatory bullet. Regulation National Market System’s June 29th trade-through rule mandate had become a dead letter. Indeed, after months of confusing Reg NMS instructions from the staff
[An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Ron Jennings, is available for download .] It’s the spending, stupid! When was the last time you heard Senator Obama or Senator McCain give a speech on the bloated public sector? Did Senator Clinton, in her recently concluded presidential bid, ever scold voters who constantly want the government to
One of the projects that President Obama’s close to trillion dollar stimulus package is designed to pay for will be a much delayed subway line in New York City. The line has been authorized and paid for by taxpayers time and again through bond issues and federal aid over more than 60 years. Yet the line is years away because of cost overruns and
“Weiner is the rule, not the exception, of American politics.” The farcical tragedy of Anthony Weiner is more than a sex scandal or the story of an arrogant politician who was finally exposed. Weiner is part of a flawed system that leads to the frequent reelection of career politicians who believe that government will solve every problem. He is
Our grandparents believed in the value of thrift, but many of their grandchildren don’t. That’s because cultural and economic values have changed dramatically over the last generations as political and media elites have convinced many Americans that saving is passé. So today, under the influence of Keynesian economists who champion government
End America’s central bank because it caused the crashes of 2008, 1987, and 1929 and will blunder again. That’s what many critics are saying about the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), which turns 100 on December 23. They note that on the Fed’s watch America has endured numerous bubbles, crashes, and inflationary cycles that have greatly devalued
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.