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Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. – AYN RAND

Can’t Afford a House? Blame Government, Not Big Investors for Higher Housing Costs

Government, not investors, is the root problem of housing prices. Rather than take on barriers to construction, politicians find it easier to blame Wall Street.

Another Great Depression?

Another Great Depression?

With both Barack Obama's supporters and the media looking forward to the new administration's policies being similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies during the 1930s depression, it may be useful to look at just what those policies were and-- more...

Bailout Parade Panic and The Benefits of Bankruptcy

Let's not allow Congress and members of the bailout parade panic us into allowing them to do things, as was done in the 1930s, that would convert a mild economic downturn into a true calamity. Right now the Big Three auto companies, and their unions, are asking...

Free Trade versus Protectionism

There's a growing anti-trade sentiment in our country. Much of the dialogue is grossly misinformed. Let's try to untangle it a bit with a few questions and observations. First, does the U.S. trade with Japan and England? Put another way, is it members of the U.S....

Planned Chaos: Nazism (Part 9 of 11)

Planned Chaos: Nazism (Part 9 of 11)

The philosophy of the Nazis, the German National Socialist Labor Party, is the purest and most consistent manifestation of the anticapitalistic and socialistic spirit of our age. Its essential ideas are not German or "Aryan" in origin, nor are they peculiar to...

Planned Chaos: Fascism (Part 8 of 11)

Planned Chaos: Fascism (Part 8 of 11)

When the war broke out in 1914, the Italian socialist party was divided as to the policy to be adopted. One group clung to the rigid principles of Marxism. This war, they maintained, is a war of the capitalists. It is not seemly for the proletarians to side with...

Planned Chaos: Trotsky’s Heresy (Part 6 of 11)

Planned Chaos: Trotsky’s Heresy (Part 6 of 11)

The dictatorial doctrine as accepted by the Russian Bolshevists, the Italian Fascists and the German Nazis tacitly implies that there cannot arise any disagreement with regard to the question who shall be the dictator. The mystical forces directing the course of...

Planned Chaos: Introduction (Part 1 of 11)

Planned Chaos: Introduction (Part 1 of 11)

The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties are eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise. It is an almost unchallenged dogma that capitalism...

Monetary Policy and the Return to Sound Money

Monetary Policy and the Return to Sound Money

Excerpted from Chapter 23, Part IV of Mises classic The Theory of Money and Credit (1912).The people of all countries agree that the present state of monetary affairs is unsatisfactory and that a change is highly desirable. However, ideas about the kind of reform...

Let Them Go Bankrupt; Save a Trillion Dollars

Let Them Go Bankrupt; Save a Trillion Dollars

Congress, the Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Reserve are hell-bent to bail out the housing and financial industries and then regulate them into rigor mortis. All this with no judicial review and a bill for taxpayers on the order of...

Bankrupt “Exploiters”: Part II

Bankrupt “Exploiters”: Part II

We don't look to arsonists to help put out fires but we do look to politicians to help solve financial crises that they played a major role in creating. How did the government help create the current financial mess? Let me count the ways. In addition to federal laws...

Bankrupt “Exploiters”

Bankrupt “Exploiters”

In one of those front-page editorials disguised as "news" stories, the New York Times blames "the lucrative lending practices" of banks and other financial institutions for helping create the current financial crisis of millions of borrowers and of the financial...

The Economics of College, Part III

The Economics of College, Part III

Why does college cost so much? There are two basic reasons. The first is that people will pay what the colleges charge. The second is that there is little incentive for colleges to reduce the tuition they charge. Those who want the government to provide subsidies to...

The Economics of College, Part II

The Economics of College, Part II

Those who argue that the taxpayers should be forced to subsidize people who go to colleges and universities seldom bother to think beyond the notion that education is a Good Thing. Some education is not only a good thing but a great thing. But, like most good things,...

The Economics of College, Part I

The Economics of College, Part I

A front-page headline in the New York Times captures much of the economic confusion of our time: "Fewer Options Open to Pay for Costs of College." The whole article is about the increased costs of college, the difficulties parents have in paying those costs, and the...

Anti-Free Trade Paradise

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, pandering to anti-trade activists, suggest that should they become president, they will restrict trade agreements. Before you buy into their promised paradise, there are a few trade questions you might...

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