Economics

Government Shows Itself Impotent on Economy

by Sheldon Richman July 11, 2012

It should finally have dawned on the American people that the politicians who presume to guide the economy have no bloody idea what they’re doing. We’re long past the time when knowledge of economics was required to see that the government is impotent when it comes to creating economic recovery. If you want evidence of that impotence, just look ...

Keynesians, Austrians, and the Continuing Economic Depression, Part 2

by William L. Anderson July 1, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The existence of business cycles — the boom-and-bust patterns — has puzzled economists. While Marx might have created a theory of why depressions occur, nonetheless there was nothing in Marxism to explain the boom period that preceded the bust. Furthermore, there was nothing in Marxism that could ...

Keynesians, Austrians, and the Continuing Economic Depression, Part 1

by William L. Anderson June 27, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 During a news talk show on August 14, 2011, Princeton University economist and 2008 Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman made a startling declaration: If the United States were to mobilize for a supposed invasion of “space aliens,” the current economic downturn would be over “in 18 months.” The ...

Is It Time to Raise the Minimum Wage?

by Laurence M. Vance June 26, 2012

During World War II, the Office of Price Administration (OPA), established by one of Franklin Roosevelt’s executive orders in 1941, was given the power to ration the supply of certain goods and freeze prices on all goods except agricultural commodities. The OPA was abolished in 1946 and is generally defended today only as a wartime measure. Richard Nixon’s “temporary” imposition ...

The Continuing Economic Crisis

by Tim Kelly June 20, 2012

President Obama has been rightfully criticized for his observation that “the private sector is doing fine.” The statement was a glaring indication that the president has no understanding of the country’s economic problems and therefore has no idea how to solve them.   The Romney campaign was quick to make use of the president’s gaffe, running ads accusing ...

No Sweat: How Sweatshops Improve Lives and Economic Growth (video)

by Benjamin Powell April 30, 2012

On April 23, 2012, Benjamin Powell gave the following speech at The Future of Freedom Foundation’s “Economic Liberty Lecture Series.” The speech can viewed below in its entirety. Benjamin Powell is an associate professor of economics at Suffolk University, the President of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, a senior economist with the Beacon Hill Institute, and a senior ...

Open Societies and Spontaneous Orders

by Richard M. Ebeling April 20, 2012

Popper, Hayek and the Open Society by Calvin Hayes (London/New York: Routledge, 2009); 284 pages. Friedrich A. Hayek and Karl Popper were two of the most influential and internationally recognized critics of totalitarian collectivism in the 20th century. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944) and Popper’s Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) helped change the intellectual climate at a time when ...

The Crash of 2008 and its Implications

by Scott B. Sumner March 22, 2012

On March 19, 2012, Scott B. Sumner gave the following speech at The Future of Freedom Foundation’s “Economic Liberty Lecture Series.” The speech can viewed below in its entirety. Scott Sumner is Professor of Economics at Bentley University. His areas of interest are macroeconomics, monetary theory and policy, and history of economic thought. He has published articles in the ...

The Trouble With Aid (video)

by Claudia R. Williamson February 21, 2012

On February 20, 2012, Claudia R. Williamson gave the following speech at The Future of Freedom Foundation’s “Economic Liberty Lecture Series.” The speech can viewed below in its entirety.

Economic Fallacies

by Sheldon Richman January 29, 2012

In On Liberty John Stuart Mill wrote, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.” This is an especially important principle for libertarians. We rely on persuasion to win adherents to the freedom philosophy. To persuade, one must use effective techniques of rhetoric. Just as important, one must know what one is arguing ...

Government Can’t Stimulate an Economy

by Sheldon Richman December 29, 2011

Barack Obama won’t use the “stimulus” label to describe the nearly half-trillion-dollar jobs bill he sent to Congress in September, but that refusal can’t hide the fact that he has no idea how economies recover from recessions. “Stimulus” is a tainted label because his $800 billion bill in 2009 was a failure. Somehow a package about half that size ...

Price Discrimination Is Fair and Just

by Laurence M. Vance November 29, 2011

While on a recent cross-country flight, I looked around at the 200 or so other passengers on the plane and thought, not about the snacks we would be served (pretzels), the movie we would be shown (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), or whether the babies on the flight would cry the whole way (they did), but about ...