Joseph Solis-Mullen | The Libertarian Institute

America’s Origins of Russophobia

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Dec 18, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

For those that grew up in the United States in the 1990s and 2000s, the explosion of Russophobia over the past decade likely came as something of a surprise. A brief survey of the history of Russophobia, however, reveals that the decade and a half after the end of the Cold War was something of an anomaly in the past century and a half of American foreign policy, with a blend of inherited geopolitical fears and ideological tensions leading to a generally anti-Russian sentiment in Washington. Our investigation begins with the so-called “Testament of Peter the Great.” An eighteenth century...

The DOGE(s) Before DOGE

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Dec 12, 2024 | Featured Articles, History, Politics

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, represents the latest in a long line of ambitious attempts to streamline the U.S. federal government and address fiscal inefficiencies. While the symbolic aspects of DOGE—its internet meme-inspired acronym and high-profile leadership—signal a modern approach to government reform, the initiative bears striking similarities to previous efforts, notably the Keep Commission under President Theodore Roosevelt, the Grace Commission under President Ronald Reagan, and...

Ignoring China’s Redlines Could Make Taiwan the Next Ukraine

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Dec 5, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The recent meeting between outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Lima, Peru offered a stark illustration of the divergent priorities and perspectives shaping the fraught U.S.-China relationship. While the Biden administration’s statement on the meeting emphasized “responsibly managing competition” and highlighted areas of potential cooperation, Xi took the opportunity to reiterate China’s concerns over American actions that Beijing views as infringements on its four “red lines.” These contrasts underscore the urgent need for Washington to reevaluate its...

Against the Tyranny of Urban Majorities

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Nov 26, 2024 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

In a recent and rather surprising piece, The Wall Street Journal highlighted growing frustrations among rural residents of states like Illinois, solidly Republican regions who feel disenfranchised by the political dominance of urban metropolises like Chicago and the wider Cook County. The article described sentiments among rural Illinoisans who increasingly view their state government as an unrepresentative body, one that governs in the interests of urban elites while neglecting or outright opposing the values, interests, and livelihoods of those living in less densely populated areas. This...

Whether the Interest Rate Rises or Falls, Inflation Is Here to Stay

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Nov 21, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles

In an economic landscape shaped by the aggressively rising prices of 2020-2022, the Federal Reserve's monetary policy pendulum swung dramatically. Starting from rock bottom rates, it engaged in a series of hikes the likes of which had not been seen since the early 1980s, moving from less than 1% in February 2022 to over 4% a year later. Going still higher with rates above 5% by the end of 2023, the Federal Reserve held rates there for the first half of 2024 in an attempt to bring the Consumer Price Index (CPI), one of its preferred price gauges, down from the scorching 9% peak in the summer...

The (Predictable) Defeat of Moderate Reforms

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Nov 14, 2024 | Featured Articles, Politics

In the 2024 general election, several states and cities across the country put forth initiatives aimed at adopting ranked-choice voting (RCV) and nonpartisan primaries. These measures were promoted as essential steps in reducing political polarization, creating more representative elections, and empowering independent and moderate voices. However, results showed a significant resistance to change, as most RCV initiatives failed at the statewide level, with the only notable success coming from Washington DC, which passed both open primaries and RCV. The outcome reveals substantial challenges...

Will We Witness a Fed Chair Who Believes in Gold?

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Nov 6, 2024 | Book Reviews, Economics, Featured Articles

Having reviewed multiple books on monetary reform over the past few years, such as Lev Menand’s The Fed Unbound: Central Banking in a Time of Crisis and Brown and Pringle’s A Guide to Good Money: Beyond the Illusions of Asset Price Inflation, I was predictably eager to see what the Independent Institute’s Judy Shelton would have to say on the topic in her new release. Her book, Good as Gold: How to Unleash the Power of Sound Money, does not disappoint. Indeed, apart from a few passages that left me scratching my head, such as a paragraph length paean to the fiscal vision of Ronald Reagan...

No Matter Who Wins, Our Wallets Are Going to Lose

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Oct 31, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles

Between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, there is little reason for hope as far as high prices go. Despite both campaigning on making prices lower—something patently ludicrous on its face—a look at their actual policy proposals cannot but lead the economically informed to conclude that prices are likely to surge in the coming years regardless of which statist alternative wins. Before diving into their policies, it is important to distinguish between the various factors that cause prices to rise. On the one hand, you have inflation; the devaluation of existing monetary units by the creation of...