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Understanding “Austrian” Economics, Part 2

All the rest of Austrian economics follows from these basic insights.

The New Deal and Recovery, Part 8: The NRA

The New Deal and Recovery, Part 8: The NRA

The 1933-37 recovery fell far short of reversing the collapse the U.S. economy suffered between 1929 and 1933, and that this disappointing outcome was the result of New Deal policies aimed at boosting wage rates. The resulting higher wage rates prevented the revival of spending from sponsoring a corresponding revival of employment.

The Politics and Economics of Plato, Aristotle, and the Ancient Greeks

The Politics and Economics of Plato, Aristotle, and the Ancient Greeks

In Aristotle, we find a more subtle and sophisticated understanding of some economic themes than in Plato. While Aristotle’s answers were incomplete and often misdirected, as well as incorrect, he at least was among the first to ask the types of questions that centuries later became part of the heart of economic analysis and understanding.

The New Deal and Recovery, Part 5: The Banking Crisis

The New Deal and Recovery, Part 5: The Banking Crisis

To understand how the world’s largest economy ended up shutting-down its entire banking system, one must first be aware of a long-standing defect of that system and of how it led, first to the proliferation of small and under-diversified banks, and then to as many bank failures.

The New Deal and Recovery, Part 4: FDR’s Fed

The New Deal and Recovery, Part 4: FDR’s Fed

If ever an administration had control over Fed policy, and monetary policy more generally, FDR’s was it. It follows that, if monetary policy did less than it should have to end the Great Depression, the Roosevelt administration must bear a good share of the blame.

The New Deal and Recovery

The New Deal and Recovery

I hope to introduce my readers to evidence casting doubt on the view that New Deal programs ended, or mostly ended, the Great Depression.

Kudos to Trader Joe’s

Kudos to Trader Joe’s

By rejecting unfounded accusations and standing by its products and their marketing, Trader Joe’s (and indirectly, its customers) displayed all of them—and therefore has earned the designation as a corporate hero.

Gold and Free Banking versus Central Banking

Gold and Free Banking versus Central Banking

In the absence of government regulation and monopoly control, a free monetary and banking system would exist; it would not have to be created, designed, or supported. A market-based system would naturally emerge, take form, and develop out of the prior system of monetary central planning. 

Free Trade vs. The Folly of Protectionism

Free Trade vs. The Folly of Protectionism

Protectionism fully implemented across all industries would mean a lower standard of living, because it would result in capital and labor unnecessarily being diverted into the production of goods that could more economically be produced elsewhere.

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