The idea that the US cannot possibly default, at least in the sense of not being able to pay its debt obligations, is universally held. It helps explain why yields on US government bonds are so low despite its public debt having
Archive for July, 2011
In Search of a New Monetary Order
Editor’s Note: This essay was originally published in The Freeman, May 1972, Volume 22, Issue 1. It has been reprinted with permission. Ever since President Nixon suspended gold payments, on August 15, 1971, the question of realistic par values of the world’s
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As Close to Gold as Fiat Currencies Get
Gold continues to make new highs against the world’s major currencies, except one: the Swiss Franc. After going above 1400 Swiss francs per ounce in May 2010, the price of gold in that currency has since moved in a sideways
Savers vs. Speculators
Here is a great short documentary by financial analyst Max Keiser on how most western economies were, and still are, geared towards low interests rates and speculation by the policies of their central banks. I don’t think Keiser thinks of
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Austrians on Current Events: What Rothbard Would Have Thought About Canada’s CPI Report
In this our second installment of the “Austrian on Current Events” feature, we once again consult the writings of Murray Rothbard. This time, we cite from his book, Man, Economy, and State, with respect to Friday’s release of Canada’s
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Gold versus Fractional Reserves
Editor’s Note: This essay was originally published in The Freeman, May 1979, Volume 9, Issue 5. It has been reprinted with permission. Henry Hazlitt, noted economist, author, editor, reviewer and columnist, is well known to readers of the New York
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On gold and a few dogmas
Please, click here to read this article in pdf format: july-25-2011 Two weeks ago, we wrote that we had bought gold during its sell-off on June 30th /July 1st . We did so reluctantly. and sold it at the
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War Is Not Peaceful
In the wake of the senseless, monstrous, and completely unjustified attacks that have claimed (so far) over 90 innocent people in Norway, many of them teenagers, there has been a rather disturbing trend in the media’s coverage of the events:
The ECB Folds
Just over two weeks ago, we had blogged (see “High Stakes Euro Poker”) that we would soon see just how independent the European Central Bank (ECB)Â truly is. As it lays the greatest claim to independence among the world’s leading
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With “friends†like this…
William Watson is one of the most free enterprise-oriented economists and journalists in all of Canada. A regular contributor to the National Post (the neo-con Canadian counterpart to the War Street Journal), he is a professor of economics at McGill
A Short History of the Bank of Canada
Editors note: Part of the Mission of the Mises Institute of Canada will be to explore and expose the roots of our very own central bank, the Bank of Canada. The Canadian experience must be re-examined through the lens of
Banking for the Welfare State
Peter Foster has a nice piece in today’s Financial Post arguing that the Murdoch affair is obscuring a bigger scandal: the financial profligacy of American and European governments. The extravagant spending of the former is being highlighted by the ongoing
Why Were There Boom-Bust Cycles Before Central Banks?
Austrian school economists universally cite the fractional reserve banking system as the primary cause of boom-bust business cycles, whereas defenders of our current fiat money/fractional reserve banking system claim that other forces are to blame, such as “shocks” to the
Still At 1%
The Bank of Canada (BoC) released its latest decision on interest rates today, keeping the benchmark overnight rate at 1% . Â Even by the criteria that Mark Carney is supposed to follow, the logic of this is hard to fathom.
One Reason Gold Closed Above US$1600
If there were something like an Austrian school hedge fund — perhaps there is one out there that I don’t know about — it’d be heavily long gold. And with today’s record close above US$1600 per ounce, that fund would
Austrians on Current Events: What Rothbard Would Have Thought about QE3
Today, we inaugurate a regular feature in the articles section highlighting passages from the Austrian tradition relevant to current events. Besides conveying the diversity, richness, and wisdom of that tradition, we hope that our effort to seek guidance from the
“Educating Tyler” - A response from Walter Block
Although I sympathize with Tyler MacNeill and his sad learning story (his tale roughly patterns my own experience as a student), I can’t say that I fully agree with him. Well, I agree with him in spirit, but not in
Rich Athletes, Poor Teachers
Originally Published July 11th, 2007 on Mises.org Top professional athletes regularly sign multi-million dollar contracts, with signing bonuses and lucrative product promotion deals. Why do professional athletes make so much more money than, say, professional teachers? Do people really value
Are You Sick of Highly Paid Teachers?
As I write, there is an email forward and Facebook re-post that is floating around by the same title. It asks, “Are You Sick of Highly Paid Teachers?†and then goes on to “show†that, actually…teachers are not paid enough.Â
Buy the product, avoid the producer
Through our past letters we have turned more and more negative, we acknowledge. We’ll go through a quick summary of our thoughts since the beginning of the year: We had been optimistic until March, hoping that the European Financial Stability
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