Donald Boudreaux, a professor of economics at George Mason University, has been a great defender of individual liberty for a long time. One of his favorite projects is pointing out how innovative and usually unnewsworthy market activity, to the extent that government...
Economics
Headlines vs Data: What Does the Jobs Report Actually Say?
by Ryan McMaken | Jun 6, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
The Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) released new jobs data on Friday. According to the report, seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs rose 339,000 jobs in May, well above forecasts. The unemployment rate rose slightly from 3.4 percent to 3.7 percent (month over...
With These Solutions, Can We Save the Idea of a Market Economy?
by Zack Sorenson | Jun 5, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism
When I first learned the basics of libertarianism and Austrian economic theory, I knew that these provided a more practical, moral, and satisfactory answer to major political and economic questions than any other ideology. For example, the premise of profitability in...
TGIF: Immigration and Liberty
by Sheldon Richman | Jun 2, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Forbidding freedom of movement to aspiring migrants strikes at the liberty not only of those individuals but also of citizens and legal residents of the United States. That's the way it is with immigration. Indeed, that's the way it is with freedom. The government...
TGIF: The Knowledge that Only Free Markets Disclose
by Sheldon Richman | May 26, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
As a follow-up to my recent article about F. A. Hayek's classic article "The Use of Knowledge in Society" (1945), I thought it worth extending Hayek's exploration of this area of social theory. In 1968 the Nobel laureate-economist delivered a lecture in German known...
Three Lies They’re Telling You about the Debt Ceiling
by Ryan McMaken | May 24, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
Negotiations over increasing the federal debt ceiling continue in Washington. As has occurred several times over the past twenty years, Republicans and Democrats are presently using increases in the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip in negotiating how federal tax...
TGIF: No One Has a Right to Make Immigration Policy
by Sheldon Richman | May 19, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says "no one has a right to immigrate" to the United States. "We determine as Americans," he says, "what type of immigration system benefits our country. When you're doing immigration, it's not for their benefit as foreigners. It's for your...
Bernie Sanders Is Angry About Wealth
by Trenton Hale | May 17, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Politics
Bernie is at it again folks. Recently, the Democratic senator proposed that the government confiscate all the money that a person makes above $999 million. This came about from an interview with Chris Wallace discussing his new book, It’s OK to Be Angry About...