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...
Ludwig von Mises
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...
End the FBI
by Ryan McMaken | May 18, 2023 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles
Special counsel John Durham on Monday released his report on the FBI's role in investigating the 2016 Donald Trump campaign's alleged collusion with Russia. This investigation, codenamed "Crossfire Hurricane," had been—according to Durham's report—"swiftly" opened as...
Fake Crime! The Fiction of ‘Seditious Conspiracy’
by Ryan McMaken | May 9, 2023 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles
Last Thursday, Enrique Tarrio, a reputed national leader of the Proud Boys organization was convicted in federal court of seditious conspiracy along with three-co-defendants. This conviction in a District of Columbia court represents a victory for the Justice...
The Iraq War Is (And Will Always Be) Undefendable
by Ryan McMaken | May 4, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
This spring marks the twentieth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. After an initial frenzy of war fever in the early years of the war, support for the war has since largely evaporated. Nearly two thirds of veterans now say the war was "not worth...
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...
The Truth Will Set You Free (Unless You Leak Government Secrets)
by William Anderson | Apr 20, 2023 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles
Most readers might not remember Daniel Ellsberg, but for those of us who came of age during the Vietnam War, the maelstrom that formed around him and his actions helped to define that era. Ellsburg, of course, is famous because he leaked a number of internal...
For 90 Years, U.S. Farmers Have Been Getting This Handout
by Connor O'Keeffe | Apr 13, 2023 | Featured Articles
The 2018 Farm Bill is due to expire this year, and U.S. lawmakers have already begun working out the next version. This food-related omnibus bill was introduced ninety years ago as a “temporary” measure during the Great Depression. It’s been reauthorized by Congress...
Invading Mexico is a Bad Idea (Duh!)
by Weimin Chen | Apr 11, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
Following the violent attack on Americans in the Mexican border city of Matamoros in early March, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham stated that he was prepared to get tough and introduce legislation to set the stage for U.S. military intervention in...
Welcome to the World of ‘Novel Legal Theories’
by William Anderson | Apr 4, 2023 | Featured Articles, Politics
When Rudy Giuliani was pursuing his infamous Wall Street prosecutions in the 1980s, his aides admitted that they were indicting people on “novel legal theories” that had not been used before. A Giuliani lieutenant bragged to a group of law students that prosecutors in...
To Fight the State, Build Alternatives to the State
by Ryan McMaken | Mar 29, 2023 | Featured Articles
Throughout its history, liberalism—the ideology today called “classical liberalism” or “libertarianism”—has suffered from the impression that it is primarily against things. This is not entirely wrong. Historically, liberalism coalesced as a recognizable and coherent...
Is the Silicon Valley Bank’s Failure the First Domino?
by Doug French | Mar 13, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
If you watched the Fed Chair Jerome Powell testify before the senate and the House, you heard over and over that banks are well capitalized. The non-sequitur should inspire the Shakespearean quote “Methinks you protest too much.” The very next day after the hearings,...
Real Estate Markets Are Addicted to Easy Money
by Ryan McMaken | Mar 8, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
On Friday, residential real estate brokerage firm Redfin released new data on home prices, showing that prices fell 0.6 percent in February, year over year. According to Redfin's numbers, this was the first time that home prices actually fell since 2012. The...
Copyright Laws Are Enabling Woke ‘Re-Writes’ of Classics
by Ryan McMaken | Feb 28, 2023 | Featured Articles
The estate of Roald Dahl this month announced that it would be rewriting many of the long-dead author’s books to better suit a “modern” audience. Translation: The books will be rewritten so the text is more in line with the editors’ notions of politically correct...
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The US Government Has Been Lying About How to Lose Weight for Decades
https://youtu.be/TUADs-CK7vI Fat Fiction Movie Website Research by Ann F. La Berge: How the Ideology of Low Fat Conquered America Turns out a low-carb diet does far more to help people lose weight than a low-fat diet.
The “Rich Get Richer” Myth
Some 94 percent of Americans who reach “top 1 percent” income status will enjoy it for only a single year. Approximately 99 percent will lose their “top 1 percent” status within a decade. Now consider the top 400 U.S. income-earners—a far more exclusive club than the...
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...
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