From today’s Open Europe news summary: Annual inflation in Germany picked up in April but by less than economists had expected, fanning concerns that inflation in the eurozone has fallen dangerously low and putting pressure on the European Central Bank
Archive for April, 2014
Capitalism with Dr. George Reisman
Reprinted from Online Trading Academy John O’Donnell’s guest today is Dr. George Reisman. He is a Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics and author of Capitalism: A Treatise of Economics. He was a personal student of Ludwig von Mises under
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Canadians Choose Work, While the U.S. Remains Idle
The U.S. labor force participation rate is currently at its lowest level in forty years, as frustrated workers stop looking for jobs, opting instead to live on the public dole, or else simply engage in more leisure time. The Obama
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Will Facebook Bring Down the Government?
Reprinted from GaryNorth.com I am going to ask a rhetorical question. When was the last time you saw a positive political cartoon for Obama? It is not just Obama’s problem. How many positive cartoons did you see for George W.
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Mises >> Krugman
In a recent blog post that almost seems deliberately provocative, Jonathan Finegold (aka Jonathan F. Catalan) argues that Paul Krugman is a better economist than Murray Rothbard. (To motivate the post, Finegold titles it, “K> R,” capitalizing on the popularity
Bank of Canada Conference on Collateral, Liquidity, and Central Bank Operations Call For Papers
11-12 September 2014, Ottawa, Canada The Financial Markets Department of the Bank of Canada is organizing a two-day conference on collateral, liquidity, and central bank operations. It will take place at the Bank of Canada in Ottawa on September 11
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The State’s Role in Divorce
There is a lot of talk about what the government’s role in marriage should be, whether it has the right to define it, to enforce it, to limit it, and so on. But a question less often posed is: what
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Thomas Piketty on Inequality and Capital
Reprinted from Mises.org Thomas Piketty’s Sensational New Book By Hunter Lewis Thomas Piketty, a 42-year-old economist from French academe has written a hot new book: Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The U.S. edition has been published by Harvard University
The Question of Children’s Rights
In the ongoing debate over the limits of libertarianism, some important points about theory and philosophy have been written. When it comes to the art of thinking and pursuing truth, this is a welcome development. Arguing over what libertarianism is
Licensure and Labor Unions: Two Sides of the Same Coin
As states increasingly move towards limiting labor union power through Right to Work laws, governments are finding other ways to restrict supply and inflate prices, by increasing occupational licensure requirements. Now, one might wonder why governments are motivated to do
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Achieving the betterment of labor without government coercion
In Florida Tomato Fields, a Penny Buys Progress Florida tomato field workers toil under harsh conditions for low pay. It seemed that the tomato growers could dictate whatever labor terms they chose, yet such was not the case. It took
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The Gross Domestic Pissants
Reprinted from Taki Magazine A small item in one of those free newspapers that end up on the seats of the world’s subway systems caught my attention yesterday. It was in the Paris Métro; I read it while sitting next to
What Libertarianism Is Not
As libertarianism begins to gain in popularity and seep into the youth culture, there is increasing pressure from certain strains of the movement to attempt to modify the theory and transform it into something that it is not. To begin
On Low-Skilled Foreign Workers
As nations compete to win the global talent race, the benefits of high skilled immigration seem clear to policy makers and leaders in Canada. However, when it comes to low skilled immigration, much controversy remains. The furor over waitresses in
Steve Landsburg on High Frequency Trading: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
University of Rochester economist Steve Landsburg is an extremely sharp thinker who is always worth reading-even when he’s wrong, as I think he (mostly) is when it comes to so-called “high frequency trading” (HFT). But before I jump into my
The CSU should take this election manifesto to its logical conclusion
From today’s Open Europe news summary: Die Welt reports that according to a draft copy of the CSU’s European election manifesto, the party wants to establish a new ‘EU competences court’ staffed by national constitutional judges who would ensure that
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Rothbardian Thoughts On Campaign Finance
Earlier this month the U.S. Supreme Court made a controversial ruling on campaign finance laws. As the Politico article summarizes: The Supreme Court on Wednesday delivered another blow to already rickety limits on campaign contributions, ruling that caps on the
My letter to the Wall Street Journal re: The US should adopt unilateral free trade
Re: US, Japan Fail to Clinch Trade Deal Dear Sirs: One of the great economic fallacies of our time is that free trade is beneficial to a country only if its trading partner also adopts free trade. Thus we witness the
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Entrepreneurship: The Driving Force of the Economy
Author of The Capitalist and the Entrepreneur, Peter Klein has published numerous books and articles on entrepreneurship from an Austrian perspective. Dr. Klein, who is executive director and Carl Menger Research fellow at the Mises Institute, was interviewed in late
The IMF is Dead Wrong on Low Interest Rates
In its just-published World Economic Outlook the IMF trumpets the view that the real level of equilibrium interest rates worldwide has declined substantially since the 1980s and is now in slightly negative territory. There is a good Irish word to
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