If there is a lesson to be learned from the economic lockdowns governments around the world started imposing on businesses in an attempt to contain the coronavirus pandemic, it is the importance of independence.
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The Economics, Politics and Morality of Fiat Money: An Interview with Pro-Capitalist Economist Raymond Niles
Professor Niles discusses the economic, political and moral aspects of the U.S. dollar, inflation, gold standard, fiat, money and legal tender laws.
Confusing Free Market Capitalism with the Corrupt Interventionist State
It is difficult to see the difference between an actual free market and the interventionist system under which we live because so many across the political spectrum refer to ours as a “capitalist” society.
Foreign Welfare at Taxpayer Expense
Much is hoped from the future prosperity of Algeria; be it so. But the drain to which France is being subjected ought not to be kept entirely out of sight.
Luxury and Frugality
On the myth that “it is the superfluity of the rich which makes bread for the poor.”
State Security of Loans
It is an injustice to the tax-payers, who are made to pay a debt which is no concern of theirs.
The Curse of Automation
“A curse on machines! Every year, their increasing power devotes millions of workmen to pauperism, by depriving them of work, and therefore of wages and bread. A curse on machines!”
The Illusory “Benefits” of Restricting Trade and Industry
Some persons consider that plunder is perfectly justifiable, if only sanctioned by law.
The Importance of the Middleman
They would gladly suppress the capitalist, the banker, the speculator, the projector, the merchant, and the trader, accusing them of interposing between production and consumption, to extort from both, without giving either anything in return.
The Loss To The Economy From Public Works
The State opens a road, builds a palace, straightens a street, cuts a canal; and so gives work to certain workmen — this is what is seen: but it deprives certain other workmen of work, and this is what is not seen.
Ought the State to Support the Arts?
If they take one direction, it is only because they have been diverted from another.
No Better Investment Than Taxes?
It is nonsense to say that the Government officer will spend these hundred sous to the great profit of national labour; the thief would do the same; and so would James B., if he had not been stopped on the road by the extra-legal parasite, nor by the lawful sponger.
Disaggregating Keynes Demonstrates Macro Delusions
Keynesian Economics has continued to dominate and hold sway over the way the vast majority of economists think about and analyze the nature of economy-wide fluctuations in employment and output.
Disbanding The Troops
You do not see that to dismiss a hundred thousand soldiers is not to do away with a million of money, but to return it to the tax-payers.
That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen
What would become of the glass makers, if nobody ever broke windows?
President Donald Trump is a Classic Mercantilist
Trump is a classic mercantilist. A mercantilist favors exporters over importers and the use of government tariffs to promote (or “protect”) less efficient, but politically favored “national champion” companies against their foreign competitors.
The New Deal and Recovery, Part 8: The NRA
The 1933-37 recovery fell far short of reversing the collapse the U.S. economy suffered between 1929 and 1933, and that this disappointing outcome was the result of New Deal policies aimed at boosting wage rates. The resulting higher wage rates prevented the revival of spending from sponsoring a corresponding revival of employment.
Celebrate Entrepreneurs Like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Don’t Guillotine Them
The key to getting wealthy in a capitalistic society is to produce something so valuable that millions of people want to trade for it. This is the source of all great historical fortunes.
The New Deal and Recovery, Part 7: FDR and Gold
The causes of the gold inflow that fueled the post-1933 recovery, and especially the part played by FDR’s decision to devalue the dollar.
The Politics and Economics of Plato, Aristotle, and the Ancient Greeks
In Aristotle, we find a more subtle and sophisticated understanding of some economic themes than in Plato. While Aristotle’s answers were incomplete and often misdirected, as well as incorrect, he at least was among the first to ask the types of questions that centuries later became part of the heart of economic analysis and understanding.
How Labor Unions Can Be Anti-Labor
To anyone who understands the role of the productivity of labor in raising real wages, it should be obvious that the unions’ policy of combating the rise in the productivity of labor renders them in fact a leading enemy of the rise in real wages.
The New Deal and Recovery, Part 6: The National Bank Holiday
During the opening days of March, 1933, the U.S. economy resembled a stricken body slowly bleeding out, its organs failing one by one. The Federal Reserve System was hemorrhaging gold, and entire state banking systems were shutting down one after another. I
The New Deal and Recovery, Part 5: The Banking Crisis
To understand how the world’s largest economy ended up shutting-down its entire banking system, one must first be aware of a long-standing defect of that system and of how it led, first to the proliferation of small and under-diversified banks, and then to as many bank failures.
The New Deal and Recovery, Part 4: FDR’s Fed
If ever an administration had control over Fed policy, and monetary policy more generally, FDR’s was it. It follows that, if monetary policy did less than it should have to end the Great Depression, the Roosevelt administration must bear a good share of the blame.
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