Raiding the World Bank: Exposing a Fondness for Dictators
I have always had a bad attitude toward official secrets regardless of who is keeping them. That prejudice and John Kenneth Galbraith are to blame for an unauthorized withdrawal I made from the World Bank. When I lived in Boston in the
The Bank of Canada’s Failed Mission to “Preserve the Value of Money”
The Bank of Canada's stated mission is "to preserve the value of money by keeping inflation low and stable." Yet, the BOC works to inflate away the value of Canadians' purchasing power every single day. Original Article: "The Bank of Canada's
The West Must Stop Trying to Expand NATO into Ukraine
The conflict in Ukraine looks like it might be about to unfreeze. A large buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine’s border, joint military exercises alongside embattled allies, and the deployment of Russian nuclear-capable bombers in the area have raised alarm among North American Treaty Organization (NATO) members. Further, heightening
Inflation Surges Near to a 40-Year High. Wages Aren’t Keeping Up.
According to new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, price inflation in November rose to the highest level recorded in nearly 40 years. According to the consumer price index for November, year-over-year price inflation rose to 6.8
Vaccine Mandates and the Great Resignation: The Media Pretends There’s No Connection
Let me be clear from the start: I do not know the degree to which vaccine mandates have played a role in the massive voluntary exodus from the workforce. I do, however, know that any true journalist would at least entertain the
Nirvana Economics: How Treating the Real World like an Imaginary Ideal World Leads to Trouble
In my industrial organization course, I discuss the economic theory of the firm. It is important in that there are many ways real world firms don’t correspond to the way they are presented in microeconomics models. When dealing with differences between
The Ethic of the Peddler Class
I was born on the lower East Side of New York and brought up on the lower West Side. (I bring in these facts as introduction to some ideas that may be of general interest, not as autobiography.) Of my
In Defense of Turgot
Murray Rothbard views the eighteenth-century French economist and administrator Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot as a great and admirable figure, but David Graeber and David Wengrow do not agree. In their recently published The Dawn of Everything (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), they present
This Professor Hates the Austrian School. But He Clearly Doesn’t Know Much about It.
Larson's principal targets are Friedman and Hayek, but Mises and Rothbard are not spared. For Larson, promarket economists aren't just wrong. They're bad people. Original Article: "This Professor Hates the Austrian School. But He Clearly Doesn't Know Much about It." This Audio
State-Level Secession Isn’t Enough. The States Themselves Must be Radically Decentralized.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last month signed new legislation largely banning the use of vaccine mandates by either private entities or local governments. The new legislation also reinforces the DeSantis administration’s overall efforts to prevent local governments from imposing mask