Mises Institute

Most experts are of the view that the massive monetary pumping by the US central bank during the 2008 financial crisis saved the US and the world from another Great Depression. On this the Federal Reserve Chairman at the time Ben Bernanke is considered the man that saved the world. Bernanke in turn attributes his actions to the writings of Professor Milton Friedman who blamed the Federal Reserve for causing the Great Depression of 1930s by allowing the money supply to plunge by over 30 percent. Careful analysis will however show that it is not a collapse in the money stock that sets in motion an economic slump as such, but rather the prior monetary pumping that undermines the pool of real funding that leads to an economic depression.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.” - Buddha

"... Gladio, amongst others, is just a perfect example of how governments used oppression against their own citizens to shape the mindset of the public to unify them towards a common goal and objective, which in our case is: counter-terrorism. The problem, however, is that by giving this support, the public indirectly relinquishes many freedoms and liberties."

The Thanksgiving we celebrate is for the success of the Pilgrims after establishing property rights and free enterprise as that event laid the foundation for the growth of America. Were our Pilgrim and Jamestown colony forefathers to wake up from the dead and look at the graduated taxation (from each according to his ability) and welfare programs (to each according to his need) we have today they might offer us a lesson in history by simply quoting Goethe, “Those who do not learn from the lessons of history are doomed to relive them.”

A society that is given the option to protect itself is not a fearful society, it is a prudent one. The victims of Paris were never allowed the option to protect their lives, nor were they fortunate to have armed defenders present or trained combatants to stop the attack before it reached them. People need the opportunity to secure their own safety since, as the past twelve years has shown, the State will fail them.

It’s quite interesting indeed when both progressives and conservatives seem to be nostalgic for those good ol’ days in the 1950s, for different reasons, of course. Conservatives want to go back to the nuclear Leave It to Beaver family and what not while liberals like to talk about those 90-percent tax rates that we owe our prosperity to. Or something like that. However, what a tax rate is and what is actually paid are two very different things.

Whether a job requires intense effort and a specialized skill or just having a human brain, market prices are the only way to match people that want to do the job with the people that want the job done. Even $0/hour is sometimes voluntarily chosen by a worker who simply wants to help a certain cause. Mandated minimum wages eliminate these kinds of peaceful and productive arrangements, leaving both parties unsatisfied and society worse off.

Will they, won't they, should they or shouldn't they? Those are the questions being hotly contested by the mainstream media on a daily basis. Of course, the reality is the Federal Reserve faces the huge obstacle of weak global growth and deflationary pressures which could very well keep them on hold well into 2016. The potential loss of credibility in the Fed by the markets could be the bigger issue to be concerned with. For now, we wait.

Social Security has long been sold to the public on the notion that what a worker will receive back is what he or she pays into the system. For decades, however, the government has been changing the terms of this "agreement" as part of an effort to avoid outright default, hiding it, instead, with a long, slow method of piecemeal default.

Free speech is not something that people would normally see as a realm of economics, but in many ways, an economic understanding of the support and opposition to free speech can shed a lot of light on what’s happening now in the West.

According to the latest data from the DEA, death from prescription drugs (7.2 per 100,000) is twice as common as gun homicides. So, for all those concerned parents who think little Johnny is likely to get gunned down on the street would be better advised to keep tabs on their prescription painkillers, as Johnny is far more likely to die from popping those than from any gun in your house or in the hands of a school mate.

While the Thai/Malay practice of using monkeys to harvest coconuts dates back hundreds of years, landing in the crosshairs of activist vegans and SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) is a new phenomenon. In a perfect world, Thai farmers would have machines and monkeys would have unspoiled wilderness. But, for the world we have — one in which habitat destruction wipes out entire populations — coconuts and farmers in need may be all that keeps the macaques in the trees and off the dinner tables.

"The truth is, the debt ceiling doesn’t actually limit government spending. It’s a farce. Every time government debt gets close to the debt ceiling, Congress just raises it.”

"An upcoming election has highlighted the deep disagreement between native Hawaiians over what the future should look like. For some, it's formal recognition of their community and a changed relationship within the US. Others want to leave the US entirely - or more accurately, want the US to leave Hawai'i."

Our booming green-industrial complex built up by administrations of both parties in the US is effectively using the United Nations, its thirty two “sister” institutions — such as the World Bank, UNESCO, and numerous “tribunals” — and hundreds of training and research centers. This huge international bureaucratic buildup is already employing over a million “international civil servants” to administer what our socialist visionaries hope will become the world government of the future.