These days politico-economic trends in the U.S. provide proponents of the free society very little to cheer about. But here is a bit of news that should elicit a hearty “YIPPEE” from free-market advocates. According to data recently released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership in 2014 dropped to 11.1% of the labor force, its
Over the weekend Target Liberty posted a very compelling interview with Friedrich Hayek that I had never seen before. The 30-minute interview took place at the University of Freiburg on May 31, 1980. The interviewer was Bernard Levin (1928-2004) an English journalist and author who was known in Great Britain as “the most famous journalist of his
The war against cash has, up to now, been waged almost exclusively by national governments and official international organizations, although there are exceptions . Now the war has acquired a powerful new ally in Chase, the largest bank in the U.S. and a subsidiary of JP Morgan Chase and Co., according to Forbes , the world’s third largest
The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks. (Lord Acton) As reported on Zero Hedge over the weekend, a Swiss pension fund manager calculated that he could save his clients a substantial amount of money by withdrawing cash from his fund’s bank account, which was
Imagine that you need a cash loan to tide you over to your next paycheck, but banks cannot or will not lend to you. So you stop at a machine that looks very much like an ATM. You scan your passport photo, pose for a photograph, enter your cell phone number, and punch in the sum of money that you would like to borrow. Within 15 minutes you
Over at EPJ Bob Wenzel offers an interesting take on market monetarist Scott Sumner’s dismissive critique of contrarian Tyler Cowen’s position that “monetary policy just doesn’t matter that much” during the recovery phase of the cycle. Wenzel awards the first round to Sumner in this blogospheric contretemps. We await Cowen’s response with
An opinion piece in today’s WSJ on the collapsing Brazilian economy extensively quotes a spokesman for Mises Institute Brazil as well as citing articles from the institute’s website. Just l ike the Mises Institute , whic h is ranked as the 9th most influential think tank in the U.S. , Mises Brazil h as an enormous intell ectual
I was deeply honored — and completely surprised — to have this handsomely produced Festschrift presented to me at the Austrian Economics Research Conference yesterday. I was ecstatic to see that the chapters were not fluff pieces but substantive contributions to Austrian economic theory and political economy inspired by my work. Thanks to my Mises
“So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.” (Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower, 1967) In his first interview in almost three years , a contemplative, septuagenarian Bob Dylan expresses, among other things, an appreciation for entrepreneurs as virtuous job creators and for voluntarism as the organizing principle of a prosperous
It was just a matter of time before Western governments used the trumped up “War on Terror” as an excuse to drastically ratchet up the very real war on the use of cash and personal privacy that they are waging against their own citizens Taking advantage of public anxiety in the wake of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket,
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.