Political, social, and economic life in the Middle Ages revolved around two sets of institutions.
MARKETS
The Perils of Financial Over-Regulation
Financial systems, like economies generally, are organic entities. They must be allowed to flourish in a natural way.
Globalization Faces Challenges
For much of the second half of the 20th Century, and even into the new millennium, “Globalization” was the dominant theme used to describe the drift of the world economy. It was widely considered both natural and inevitable that the world economy would continue to...
An Introduction to Austrian Economics (Part 9 of 9): Booms and Busts
Government Regulation of Business: Protection or Harm?
Government should get out of regulating business at all, including regulations on product safety, emissions, and dealing with industrial waste.
An Introduction to Austrian Economics (Part 8 of 9): Government Intervention
The Ancient Romans: From Rule of Law to Price Controls
The area in which the Ancient Romans did leave a body of thought, and one that has had lasting influence and significance for future generations, especially in the West up until our own time was in the area of law and contract.
Video: An Introduction to Austrian Economics (Part 7 of 9): Everything Takes Time: Savings, Investment, and Prosperity
Video: An Introduction to Austrian Economics (Part 6 of 9): Why Socialism Was and Always Will Be “Impossible”
The Next Recession Looms Large
Currently economists and market watchers roughly fall into two camps: Those who believe that the Federal Reserve must begin raising interest rates now so that it will have enough rate cutting firepower to fight the next recession, and those who believe that raising...
Aristotle and Economics
Political-Economic Ideas of The Greeks, Part 3
The Investment Bankers Contribution: Directing Capital To Productive Uses
Productive companies and investment bankers who help them obtain capital are making an important contribution to human flourishing for which they should be proud.
Video: An Introduction to Austrian Economics (Part 5 of 9): Economic Calculation, Profit and Loss
Austrian Economics is the most powerful explanation of why governments, no matter how well-intentioned, lack the knowledge, wisdom and ability to direct the lives of multitudes of people better than those people can do for themselves.
Video: An Introduction to Austrian Economics (Part 4 of 9): Entrepreneurs
Austrian Economics is the most powerful explanation of why governments, no matter how well-intentioned, lack the knowledge, wisdom and ability to direct the lives of multitudes of people better than those people can do for themselves.
Video: An Introduction to Austrian Economics (Part 3 of 9): The Market as a Process of Competitive Cooperation
Austrian Economics is the most powerful explanation of why governments, no matter how well-intentioned, lack the knowledge, wisdom and ability to direct the lives of multitudes of people better than those people can do for themselves.
Video: An Introduction to Austrian Economics (Part 2 of 9): Economics is Human Action
Austrian Economics is the most powerful explanation of why governments, no matter how well-intentioned, lack the knowledge, wisdom and ability to direct the lives of multitudes of people better than those people can do for themselves.
Ludwig von Mises’s Majestic Magnum Opus, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Ludwig von Mises’s majestic magnum opus, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, was published on September 14, 1949. In the nearly seven decades since its appearance, Human Action has come to be recognized as one of the truly great classics of modern economics.
Free Banking and the Federal Reserve
The record of past “free banking” systems, in which paper currency consisted of competitively supplied banknotes, contradicts the widespread belief that central banks play an essential part in promoting financial stability. Instead, both that record and...
Apple Tax Grab by EU Invades IRS Airspace
On August 30th, the European Union (EU) Commission ordered the Irish government to reclaim some $14.6 billion of so-called back taxes plus interest from Apple Inc. The order challenged sovereign tax authority within the EU and well-established international tax rules....
Book Excerpt: Austrian Economics & Public Policy: Restoring Freedom and Prosperity by Richard Ebeling
Austrian Economics is the most powerful explanation of why governments, no matter how well-intentioned, lack the knowledge, wisdom and ability to direct the lives of multitudes of people better than those people can do for themselves if left sufficiently at liberty to d…
Government, Business, and Human Flourishing
If we want to promote human flourishing and avoid human suffering, it is crucial that we challenge the ideal of government ‘redistribution’ of wealth and regulation of the economy and advocate reason, freedom and individual rights instead.
Apple’s Tax Avoidance Strategy is Moral and Should Be Praised
Rather than complaining about ‘unfairly’ low corporate taxes paid by Apple and others, we would be better off advocating low, and eventually no, corporate taxes, more wealth creation, strong protection of individual rights by governments–and capitalism.
Video: An Introduction to Austrian Economics (Part 1 of 9): Menger, Mises and Hayek
Austrian Economics is the most powerful explanation of why governments, no matter how well-intentioned, lack the knowledge, wisdom and ability to direct the lives of multitudes of people better than those people can do for themselves.
A Monetary Policy Primer, Part 6: The Reserve-Deposit Multiplier
The multiplier’s significance to monetary policy is, or used to be, straightforward: it indicated the quantity of additional bank deposits that monetary authorities could expect to see banks produce in response to any increment of new bank reserves supplied them by mean…
Big Policies, Bigger Failures
Economics is far simpler than most in academics or government would have you believe. To make accurate predictions all you really need is an honest appreciation of the self-interest that is at the heart of free market transactions and an ability to understand how...
The Myth of the Myth of Barter
There is, after all, at least one impulse among humans that’s more deep-seated than their “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange.” I mean, of course, their propensity to let themselves be thoroughly bamboozled.
Central Banks Are Choking Productivity
If the Economy were a car, productivity would be the engine. Heated seats, on-demand 4-wheel drive and light-sensitive tinted windshields, are all very nice. But they mean little if the engine doesn’t turn and the car just sits in the driveway. The latest productivity...
Free Market Money: On The Separation of Banking and State
Government has been the cause of monetary disorder in our society. A free market in money and banking would be the solution to our “age of inflation.” Government central-planning of money has been tried and it has failed. It is now time for monetary freedom to be g…
UK’s Prime Minister Commits to Successful Brexit
On June 23rd, despite months of fear mongering by former Prime Minister David Cameron and his allies, doomsday global economic forecasts offered by the International Monetary Fund and the Obama Administration, and a steady drumbeat of anti-Brexit news stories by the...
On Free Banking, Monetary Rules, and Crusades
Free banking and monetary rules were rival ideas for guarding against abuses of discretionary monetary policy, today they are properly seen as complementary schemes, one for improving the performance of the banking system, the other for reforming the base-money regime. …
A Monetary Policy Primer, Part 5: The Supply of Money
On the Fed’s “instruments of monetary control,” which include devices for regulating the total quantity of bank reserves and circulating Federal Reserve notes, and also for regulating the quantity of bank deposits and other forms of privately-created money that will be …
Speak Loudly and Carry No Stick
Theodore Roosevelt’s famous mantra “speak softly and carry a big stick” suggested that the United States should seek to avoid creating controversies and expectations through loose or rash pronouncements, but be prepared to act decisively, with the most powerful...
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