The end is near. The end, that is, of the current monetary system. But inflation or deflation? Dow 1,000 or wheelbarrow money? While the arguments on the deflation side are not entirely without merit, they rely on conceptual errors that result in exaggerating the magnitude of a possible deflation. The primary error of the deflation camp is the
In a lengthy interview economist Peter Boettke explains his views on the future of Austrian economics and what he is doing form his position as a university faculty member to advance the academic conversation around the Mises-Hayek tradition. It is my view that any social-intellectual change movement can and should use a variety of strategies. One
Gary North writing at LewRockwell.com thinks that hyperinflation will not be the outcome of the current monetary crisis: This is the fear of most hard-money analysts. They see the Federal Reserve as the ultimate engine of hyperinflation. It could become this, if its senior decision-makers use Robert Mugabe as the model. I do not think The FED’s
To follow on my recent post Why Do We Hate Modern Classical Music? I am writing a follow up to clarify some of the points that came up in the comments section. The first is to clarify that I mean “modern classical” in a stylistic sense, not necessarily limited to when the music was composed. I could have, and will in this post use the word
Exhibit A : Jeremy Grantham, a highly respected and successful value investor, wrote :: I would say that anything of which 75 per cent sits idly and expensively in bank vaults is, as a measure of value, only one step up from the Polynesian islands that attached value to certain well-known large rocks that were traded. Elsewhere , Grantham
Modern classical music is primarily a project of the classical music industry’s managerial elites which has no basis in consumer demand. Despite decades of evidence that audiences do not like this music, the managerial elites continue to push this agenda. When challenged, their response is to blame the classical music audience for not liking the
In a recent article, The Case Against Gold David Berman interviews a Canadian fund manager who is bearish for all of the wrong reasons. As do the vast majority of analysts and writers, he totally misunderstands how the gold price is formed. While Berman is correct that “gold must obey the law of supply and demand”, his explanation of how the law
Edward Chancellor in The Financial Times (requires free registration) after a few paragraphs on the perversities of the current international monetary system, asks “What’s to be done?”. Replying: Some yearn for a return to the strict discipline of the gold standard. But there is not enough of the precious metal and it would be absurd to restrict
As reported by ABC News , what started out as a program to hold unclaimed property, such as the contents of safety deposit boxes owned by people who have moved away without a forwarding address, has gone wildly out of control. The program is now using the flimsiest of excuses to drill safe deposit boxes and sell the contents, often for
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.