Proponents of Forced Vaccines Want You to Think Healthcare Is a Communal Resource

Robert Zumwalt

One narrative currently being circulated in support of vaccine mandates is that unvaccinated people will cause an undue strain on the healthcare system because they are more likely to contract covid-19 and take up hospital beds that could be used for other people. Presumably, by “other people” they mean those who took the vaccine like they were told to do.

Governments Love Inflation, and They Won’t Do Anything to Stop It

Daniel Lacalle

No government looking to massively expand its size in the economy and monetize a soaring deficit is going to act against rising prices, despite claiming the opposite.

We’re Living in a Chaos Economy. Here’s How to End It.

Mark Thornton

The Federal Reserve has been increasing the money supply at an explosive rate. The federal budget, deficits, and the trade deficit are record levels. Governments, both foreign and domestic, have locked down people, restricting production and consumption. How should this be viewed by an economist?

Why Businessmen Make Such Unimpressive Politicians

Connor Mortell

In 2016, we watched time and time again as polls stated that people liked Donald Trump because he is a businessman and came from outside the world of politics. Dozens of factors led to his election but there is no doubt that among voters this mindset of the potential for a savvy businessman in charge was at play. However, looking at it in hindsight, can we really say that a savvy businessman was ever in charge? Perhaps the most successful libertarian there has ever been, the great Dr. Ron Paul, wrote explaining that when it comes to spending the argument was always “Trump vs. Trump.” He’d speak seeking to cut taxes and then would ask for raises on spending and print money to close the gap. Dr. Paul goes as far as to say, “Following the President’s constantly changing policies can make you dizzy.” So why is it that this businessman would come into office and then act in direct opposition to the business-oriented nature he claimed he’d demonstrate? The easy answer would be that it turned out that he was never really a good businessman to begin with. There may or may not be merit to this argument. But it does not matter whether or not he was a competent businessman, because the minute he took his oath of office, he became part of a bureaucracy and any expectations of fiscal or monetary responsibility were immediately lost. This is because it is impossible to run a government “like a business.” There’s no economic calculation and no way of measuring profit.

Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

George Reisman
My purpose today is to make just two main points: (1) To show why Nazi Germany was a socialist state, not a capitalist one. And (2) to show why socialism, understood as an economic system based on government ownership of the means of production, positively requires a totalitarian dictatorship.

The Postpandemic World Is One of Widespread Dependence on Government

Per Bylund

The state strives for power, and what grants power is fear and dependence. The state is making people dependent on it, both as means for control and as an outcome of many policies intended to provide relief.

How the “Respectable” Media Serves the Political Elite

Murray N. Rothbard

[Editor’s note: Two interviews from August 1992 given by Murray Rothbard to the Swedish student publication Svensk Linje (continuously published since 1942) were recently discovered in the Rothbard Archives and translated by Sven Thommesen for the first time. In this interview, Rothbard offers his thoughts on the 1992 election and the role of the “respectable” media in promoting the campaign of Bill Clinton.]

The 1787 Constitution Was a Radical Assault on the Spirit of the Revolution

Murray N. Rothbard

(Originally posted on Mises.org)

It was a bloodless coup d’état against an unresisting Confederation Congress. The original structure of the new Constitution was now complete. The Federalists, by use of propaganda, chicanery, fraud, malapportionment of delegates, blackmail threats of secession, and even coercive laws, had managed to sustain enough delegates to defy the wishes of the majority of the American people and create a new Constitution. The drive was managed by a corps of brilliant members and representatives of the financial and landed oligarchy. These wealthy merchants and large landowners were joined by the urban artisans of the large cities in their drive to create a strong overriding central government—a supreme government with its own absolute power to tax, regulate commerce, and raise armies. These powers were sought eagerly as a method of handing out special privileges to commercial groups: navigation acts to subsidize shipping, tariffs to protect inefficient artisans stampeded by national depression from foreign manufactured goods, and a strong army and navy to pursue an aggressive foreign policy designed to force the opening of West Indies ports, the Mississippi River, and the Northwest. And, to pay for all of these bounties, a central taxing power would be harnessed that could also assume and pay the public debt held by wealthy speculators. But government, by its nature, cannot supply bounties and privileges without taking them from others, and these others were to be largely the hapless bulk of the nation’s citizens, the inland subsistence farmers. In western Massachusetts, taxes to pay a heavy public debt owned by wealthy men in the East had produced Shays’ Rebellion. Now, a new super government was emerging and carrying out on a national scale the mercantilist principle of taxation, regulation, and special privilege for the benefit of favored groups (“the few”) at the expense of the bulk of producers and consumers in the country (“the many”). And while to acquire sufficient support they had to purchase allies among the mass of the people (e.g., urban artisans), the major concentration of benefits and privileges would undoubtedly accrue to America’s aristocracy.

Inflation Is Killing the Recovery

Daniel Lacalle

(Originally posted on Mises.org)

Last week, Ned Davis Research published a note titled “Turns Out, Growth Looks like It Was Transitory—Inflation Is More Sticky.” There are many factors that show us that consumers and salaries are being eaten away by inflation, leading to an abrupt halt in the recovery. Autos and new home sales plunged, real disposable personal income has plummeted, and real median wage growth is lower than inflation.

The Public Health Officials Say “Trust Us.” The Data Says Otherwise.

Anthony Rozmajzl

(Originally posted on Mises.org)

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Ben Shapiro, but feelings trump facts when it comes to covid-19. This is thanks entirely to the love triangle forged between the corporate press, government officials, and tech giants whose sinister and divisive campaign of fear and censorship spawned a reaction so virulent that society was upended in a matter of weeks for a virus with a 99 percent plus survival rate.

A Global Fiat Currency: “One Ring to Rule Them All”

Thorsten Polleit

1.

Human history can be viewed from many angles. One of them is to see it as a struggle for power and domination, as a struggle for freedom and against oppression, as a struggle of good against evil.

Is an Educated Population Really Necessary for Innovation and Growth?

Lipton Matthews

(Originally posted on Mises.org)

Lamentations that the waves of innovation are receding have engulfed policy circles. Distinguished economist Robert Gordon avers that the days of transformative innovations are over. Like Peter Thiel, he is disappointed at the incremental nature of modern-day inventions. The declinist thesis is predicated on the assumption that groundbreaking innovations like the steam engine, electricity, and the telephone are becoming exceedingly rare. Educing evidence to prove this observation has been quite easy, but we are less astute at understanding why innovation is declining.

Before a Bust, There Is Always a Boom (and Malinvestment)

Frank Shostak

(Originally posted on Mises.org)

For most commentators lending is associated with money. However, is this the case? When a saver lends money, what he/she in fact lends to a borrower is final consumer goods that he/she did not consume. Therefore, what a lender lends to a borrower is savings and not money as such. 

US Military Propaganda in Film, Sports, and TV: It’s Everywhere

Zachary Yost

(Originally posted on Mises.org)

I was a young lad of thirteen when the first Transformers film directed by Michael Bay premiered in theaters. I do not recall much about it other than Megan Fox working on Shia Labeouf’s car, but apparently, this sultry façade was hiding a darker secret: the film was actually government-supported propaganda produced with extensive involvement from the military. This is just one of the many surprising and sometimes shocking things I learned from Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall’s new book, Manufacturing Militarism: U.S. Government Propaganda in the War on Terror, which should be read by everyone who seeks to more fully understand the extent to which militaristic propaganda has pervaded seemingly every aspect of our society.

Debunking Biden’s Claim We Must “Protect the Vaccinated from the Unvaccinated”

Ryan McMaken

The official line on vaccines is that they are extremely effective at protecting against serious illness. And yet, these same people are also claiming that the unvaccinated are a major threat to the vaccinated.

Biden’s Vaccine Mandates: It’s about Power

Ryan McMaken

(Originally posted on (Mises.Org)

The Biden administration on Thursday announced sweeping new mandates. The new mandates require that all employers with more than one hundred workers require workers to be vaccinated or to test for the virus weekly. The mandates also require covid vaccinations for the 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid. Moreover, vaccines are mandated for all employees of the federal government’s executive branch, and for all contractors who do business with the federal government. There is no option to test out in these cases.

Against Biden’s Mandates

The Editors

(Originally posted on Mises.org)

We oppose President Biden’s lawless and authoritarian new mandates announced yesterday. We also denounce his divisive rhetoric toward unvaccinated Americans, his reckless antipathy for federalism, and his threats to usurp state governors.

Why the Fed Is So Desperate to Hide Price Inflation

Thorsten Polleit

Speaking at the Jackson Hole meeting on August 27, 2021, Federal Reserve (Fed) chairman Jerome J. Powell indicated that he supported “tapering” toward the end of this year and hastened to add that interest rate hikes are still a long way off. The term “tapering” means that the central bank reduces its monthly purchases of bonds and slows down the monthly increase in the quantity of money accordingly. In other words, even with tapering, the Fed will still churn out newly printed US dollar balances, but to a lesser extent than before; that is, it will still cause monetary inflation, but less than before. 

Remember When Conservatives “Canceled” Anyone against the War on Terror? I Do.

James Bovard

(Originally posted on Mises.org)

Life in American changed twenty years ago after the 9/11 attacks. Many Americans became enraged at anyone who did not swear allegiance to President George W. Bush’s anti terrorism crusade. Anyone who denied “they hate us for our freedoms” automatically became an enemy of freedom.

WaPo Editors: “Liberty” Requires Us to Implement Vaccine Passports

Alice Salles

(Originally posted on Mises.org)

Mandating private and government employees to be immunized against covid-19 and requiring the use of standardized electronic passes as proof of immunization across the nation is what liberty is made of, the editors of the Washington Post argued last week.