Trump’s Maoist Steel Obsession

“If steel and iron works, copper mines, and sawmills cannot be operated to their full capacity, the reason can only be that there are not enough buyers on the market ready to purchase their whole output at prices which cover the costs” wrote Ludwig von Mises in Human Action.¹ Chairman Mao’s steel obsession In his first Five Year Plan (1953–57) and the Great Leap Forward (1958–60), Chairman Mao steered communist China toward heavy industrial production. He was obsessed with steel production as a measure of a nation’s superiority, and so directed the population of China to produce as much...

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Neil Ty, The Scientism Guy

Neil deGrasse Tyson has released a new video aimed at a what he sees as a growing anti-intellectualism problem in the United States. It was released at the same time as the March for Science and many Earth Day demonstrations. He reflects on what he thinks made America great and what’s stalling progress today. Science used to be respected, but today, there is a growing crowd of science-deniers who threaten our “informed democracy.” The real anti-intellectual move, however, is conflating science, the scientific method, and truth to be one and the same. Fundamentally, science is any human...

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Auditing the Fed Is Now More Important than Ever

Last week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform approved a bill submitted by Thomas Massie (R-KY) to allow Congress to audit the Federal Reserve. The bill was originally introduced by Ron Paul in 2009 and was passed in the House twice (2012 and 2014), but failed to pass in the Senate. The Obama administration, Fed chair Bernanke, and Treasury Secretary Geithner “vigorously opposed” the bill in 2009. Conditions are different today. President Trump tweeted in favor of the move during his campaign and now Republicans have a slight majority in the Senate. Even in a highly...

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Bill Gates’s Robot Tax Is a Terrible Idea

Bill Gates has called for a “robot tax” to help maintain government tax revenue when human laborers are let go because a “robot comes in to do the same thing.” He seems to be following the same line of argument that many make for a universal basic income: when a worker in a $50,000/year job is replaced by some automated process and then finds a $25,000/year job, the government will need the extra resources to sustain this worker’s quality of life, but will have lost that much in income taxes by the worker moving to a new lower-paying job. Even setting aside the questionable benefit of...

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Jonathan Newman

Jonathan Newman earned his PhD at Auburn University and is a Mises Institute Fellow.


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Israel Winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War

Israel Winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War

From the Foreword by Lawrence B. Wilkerson: “[T]he debate over whether oil was a principal reason for the 2003 invasion has waxed and waned, with one camp arguing that it absolutely was, while the other argues the precise opposite.” “Mr. Vogler, himself a former...

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