The Free Market 19, no. 1 (January 2001) A mathematician and an economist were asked, “What is the sum of two plus two?” The mathematician immediately answered, “It is four.” The economist, on the other hand, closed all windows and doors and asked quietly, “What do you want it to be?” Just when we think this story is simply another silly
The Free Market 19, no. 2 (February 2001) While it did not make headway in this latest presidential campaign, events of the last year have weakened one of the longest-standing policies of the US government: the trade embargo with Cuba. Born in the cold war fervor of the early 1960s and further strengthened by the Cuban Missile Crisis of October
The Free Market 19, no. 4 (April 2001) In an earlier article in the FreeMarket , I questioned whether or not Joel Klein, who headed the US Justice Department’s Antitrust Division during the Clinton administration’s jihad against Microsoft, was doing so as a “public servant,” or might there be a more personal agenda. We now have our answer: Klein
The Free Market 19, no. 6 (June 2001) Myths are myths, whether told by storytellers or by Tom Brokaw on NBC Nightly News . Brokaw has recently taken to telling his viewers that the consumer is spending enough to prevent a recession. The reasoning goes as such: Confident consumers do not fear the future, which means they spend almost all (if not
The Free Market 19, no. 8 (August 2001) One thing that has achieved Holy Writ with economists and politicians is the Consumer Price Index, or the CPI. Each month, people from Alan Greenspan to traders at the New York Stock Exchange to the economist in the Economics 101 prison await the latest announcement from the US Department of Labor that
The Free Market 19, no. 10 (October 2001) Everyone complains about bad service. From the airlines to telecommunications, we hear of the increasing number of consumer complaints. Diane Brady, a writer for Business Week , believes that she has the answer to why some of us might believe service is bad. Last year, she informed BW ‘s readers that,
The Free Market 19, no. 12 (December 2001) In the weeks following the terror attacks, calls have come from politicians and journalists to “federalize” airport security by making workers who screen passengers and baggage government employees. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and others in Congress have declared that “passengers won’t feel
While journalists and political junkies eagerly await and discuss each of Bush’s choices to serve in the cabinet, the real issue is not even on the radar screen. What about the declared purpose of the departments themselves? Each was establish for the purpose of intervening in the rights and liberties of Americans. The machinery of the
When a presidential nominee is shot down for a post in government, the person’s first reaction is sadness and regret. But a person like Linda Chavez should look on the bright side. As an opponent of much of the policies of the Department of Labor, she won’t have to face four years of relentless frustration and anger that comes with attempting to
White House insiders have said for years that Bill Clinton has been desperately seeking a legacy for his administration – other than having been impeached and having disgraced himself and his office. At long last, he has at least two of them. The first of these is the coming recession, his first gift to the incoming administration of George W.
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.