Lindsay Goldwert on Stand-up Comedy
Bob Murphy interviews Lindsay Goldwert on her years performing at and organizing stand-up comedy shows in NYC, the interaction between comedy and finance, and her new book, BOW DOWN. For …
Mises Wire
Are Housing Markets Still Clearing out the Trash of the Last Bust?
The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF closed the other day at 45.65, poking higher than February 2006’s 44.70. The conventional wisdom is: “Teamed with a resilient job market, low mortgage rates …
The Deception behind Government Licensing Laws
[From Power and Market, chapter 3.] One of the favorite arguments for licensing laws and other types of quality standards is that governments must “protect” consumers by insuring that workers …
California’s Anti-Self-Employment Law Is Already Crushing Freelancers
In 1971, Isaac Asimov wrote an extraordinary novel, The Gods Themselves, about a machine that generates unlimited energy for free, defying the fundamental economic principle known as scarcity. It is …
What Free Market Money Would Look Like
Monetary affairs have always been subject to government intervention of one kind or another. In ancient times, these interventions were made to raise funds for public spending; by debasing the …
Death to Prohibition
The end of alcohol prohibition in 1933 and the subsequent War on Drugs might just be what spreads a widespread revival of libertarianism and Austrian Economics. On January 17, 1920, …
Luck and Taxes
“Luck egalitarianism” is a philosophical fad, and in the past I have had some characteristically unkind things to say about it. I’d like today to discuss a new argument that …
Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature
Includes an introduction by Lew Rockwell. Recorded at the Mises Institute’s “Egalitarianism and the Free Society” seminar in Princeton, New Jersey; April 12-14, 1991. Mises WireThe Mises Institute exists to …
The Bank of England’s Governor Fears a Liquidity Trap
The global economy is heading towards a “liquidity trap” that could undermine central banks’ efforts to avoid a future recession according to Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England. …
Working around Leviathan
Here is what strikes me as a profound political paradox. The US government is larger, more consolidated, more powerful, and more intrusive than it has ever been in its history …