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...
Federal Reserve
If America Loses Its Reserve Currency Status, You’ll Still Be Okay
by Ryan McMaken | Apr 27, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
Earlier this month, Larry Kudlow insisted that it is "it's incumbent on the U.S. government, no matter who's in power, to maintain the reserve currency status of the dollar." Kudlow laments that a toppling of the dollar from that perch "seems to be the direction we're...
New Florida Bill Would Ban Central Bank Digital Currencies
by Michael Maharrey | Apr 3, 2023 | Featured Articles
A bill introduced in the Florida House would ban the use of central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the state. Rep. Wyman Duggan (R) brought House Bill 7049 (H7049) to the House Commerce Committee on March 28, and the committee voted along party lines to officially...
Big Tech, As Brought To You By the Federal Reserve
by Norman Singleton | Mar 27, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
New York Times Technology writer David Streitfeld recently examined the role the Federal Reserve’s easy money policies played in the rise and, if not fall then at least slippage, of many technology companies. Immediately after the bursting of the housing bubble (which...
Record Bank Failures, And What They Mean
by Ron Paul | Mar 21, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
The failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on March 10 was the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. Just two days following SVB’s collapse, Signature Bank joined the record books as the third largest bank failure in U.S. history. First Republic Bank also seemed...
No, Wall Street Was Never Deregulated
by Norbert Michel and Nicholas Anthony | Mar 15, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
In March 2018, The New York Times ran an op‐ed about the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (the Economic Growth Act). The piece claimed the bill “would roll back or eliminate parts of the Dodd‐Frank Act.” Fast forward to March 2023,...
‘Big Tech’ Was Enabled by the Fed
by Ron Paul | Mar 7, 2023 | Featured Articles
Now you see it...maybe soon you won’t. Over the last year, the seeming ability of stock values of many technology companies to keep rising forever met resistance. This was true even for the major technology companies known collectively as “big tech.” During the last...
Raising the Debt Ceiling Is An Anti-Social Policy
by Daniel Lacalle | Feb 22, 2023 | Featured Articles
Every time the United States reaches its debt limit, we read that it is important to reach an agreement to lift it. The narrative is that the debt ceiling must be raised, or the US economy will suffer a severe contraction. There is even an episode of a TV series,...
As the Fed’s Inflation Worsens, the IRS Is Targeting Restaurant Wait Staff
by Ron Paul | Feb 21, 2023 | Featured Articles
According to the January report of the Consumer Price Index, price inflation increased by 0.5 percent last month. This follows a 0.1 percent increase in December. The total increase over the last 12 months is 6.4 percent. The official government statistics, which are...
How Ron Paul Gets Liberty Right
by Lew Rockwell | Feb 20, 2023 | Featured Articles
The great Dr. Ron Paul has been right about all the major issues that confront the world today. He is right about the Fed, the Ukraine war, the FBI, and so much else. How has he managed to do that? What has given him wisdom unique on the political scene today? The...
Sales Tax Is Still Theft
by Ron Paul | Feb 7, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
A group of House Republicans is supporting legislation that would replace federal income, payroll, estate, and gift taxes with a 30 percent national sales tax. The bill also eliminates the Internal Revenue Service, giving states the responsibility to collect the sales...
The Early Bird Stops the Central Bank’s Digital Currency Designs
by Connor O'Keeffe | Feb 6, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
Whether you like it or not, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are coming. That’s the message in a recent tech column in the Wall Street Journal. A similar tone can be found coming from organizations like the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Fund,...
Bubbles R-Us
by David Stockman | Feb 2, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
The Wall Street Journal today brings word that a professor Efraim Benmelech of the finance department at Northwestern University thinks the Fed is hurting housing and the consumer too much. Opined he, ...those higher interest rates are making mortgages more expensive...
1/27/23 Ryan McMaken on How the Fed Is Ripping Us Off
by Scott Horton | Jan 31, 2023 | The Scott Horton Show
Download Episode. Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute joins Scott to discuss the ill effects central banking has on the country. McMaken wrote an article recently pointing out that the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, is technically bankrupt. Scott has...
Blog
The Non-Existent Difference Between National Socialism and Democratic Socialism
Summary: National Socialism and Democratic Socialism both advocate institutionalized violence by the state against peaceful people only differing in rhetoric. The most popular self described Democratic Socialists in America today are Senator Bernie Sanders and...
A Response to My Memorial Day Critics
My article against Memorial Day drew a lot of ire and attention. This should not have been surprising; I was making a controversial statement. What did surprise me, however, was that many critics were self-described libertarians or former libertarians. There were many...
Ignoring Political Gossip & Sticking to Principle
https://youtu.be/ZwWHjYVY4tg In the private sector, firms must attract voluntary customers or they fail; and if they fail, investors lose their money, and managers and employees lose their jobs. The possibility of failure, therefore, is a powerful incentive to find...
The Myth of “Hyper-Rugged-Isolationist-Individualism”
Myth #1: Libertarians believe that each individual is an isolated, hermetically sealed atom, acting in a vacuum without influencing each other. This is a common charge, but a highly puzzling one. In a lifetime of reading libertarian and classical-liberal...
The Lesson From Germany and Korea
Institutions are, of course, in some sense the products of culture. But, because they formalize a set of norms, institutions are often the things that keep a culture honest, determining how far it is conducive to good behaviour rather than bad. To illustrate the...
Occupational Licensing Increases Prices and Deprives People of Options
When you shop online, vendors usually give you a bunch of different ways to sort your options. Take Amazon: One popular sorting option – especially for customers with low income – is “Price: Low to High.” You’ve probably used it yourself many times. This...
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