Audio Mises Wire

Murray Rothbard's view of the origins of World War II has an important lesson for us today.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/murray-rothbard-and-world-war-ii-origins

Henry Hazlett wrote in Economics in One Lesson that each generation has to relearn economic fallacies that government employs when implementing bad policies. New Yorkers are about to learn a lot of new lessons.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/all-means-elect-mamdani-and-watch-his-socialist-laboratory-work

Trump's team is citing the fentanyl crisis to justify its escalations near Venezuela. But virtually all illicit fentanyl is made and smuggled thousands of miles away. If war or regime change in Venezuela is good for the American people, why hide the true motivations?Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/trump-administration-lying-us-another-war

The food stamp program is a way for Pepsico and the Coca-Cola company to legally rip off the taxpayers.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-food-industry-lobbyists-keep-food-stamp-gravy-train-going

For more than 60 years, the US government has enforced a trade embargo against Cuba, ostensibly to force the communist government into collapse. The only thing that has collapsed, however, is the logic in the US policy.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/brief-history-enduring-american-embargo-against-cuba

September's fiscal surplus was not thanks to tariff revenue. In truth, it was thanks to Americans paying more in income tax. Tariffs were only 5.7 percent of revenue.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/no-tariffs-did-not-cause-septembers-budget-surplus

Despite the change in the White House, critical race theory is still with us, dominating the academic sectors and being ingrained in progressive culture. We need to better recognize what it is and how it works in order to better refute it.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-recognize-critical-race-theory

No one doubts that the US is a politically and culturally divided nation. Contrary to much of public opinion, politicians like Donald Trump did not cause the crisis. Instead, as Lawrence Mead writes, they are a symptom of the government's assault on our culture.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/recognizing-roots-current-us-political-turmoil

As a true market entrepreneur, as opposed to a political entrepreneur, James J. Hill successfully built a transcontinental railroad, outcompeting his government-subsidized competitors.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/myth-robber-barons-james-hill-versus-crony-competitors

Once again, the Trump administration's “dealmaking” on international trade has blown up, this time pulling the rug from under US soybean farmers. This isn't the first trade policy fiasco, nor will it be the last.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/america-hurts-farmers-and-discounts-chinas-soy-imports-while-providing-crutch-argentina

The concept of “planned obsolescence” makes no economic sense and is often an excuse for governments to harass and shake down innovative entrepreneurs. Much of so-called planned obsolescence is really entrepreneurship at work improving products for users and consumers.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/myth-planned-obsolescence

“I see that you are preparing the groundwork for supporting Nixon,” Rothbard wrote Meyer. “Again, for shame! Is this what conservative principles are coming down to...?"Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/new-rothbard-letters-show-his-early-opposition-both-nixon-and-reagan

There have been four gold busts under the fiat dollar money regimes since the “freeing” of the gold price in March 1968. Will the current gold boom end in a similar bust?Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/what-will-next-gold-bust-look

The US Constitution as originally written and understood no longer exists. The first wave of “progressives” reinterpreted it to their liking before later generations of progressives finished the job.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-progressives-broke-constitution-and-praised-themselves-it

Popular views of capitalism and free markets are not shaped by the facts, but rather by anti-capitalist intellectuals and the media.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/popular-media-romanticism-and-statist-insinuation

The yearning for a state-controlled system is not born of compassion for others but rather of infantile selfishness.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/economics-and-infantilization-culture

“Science” is now indistinguishable from politics. As the “acid rain” hysteria showed back in the 1970s and 1980s, “follow the science” is just a political slogan, unrelated to actual science.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/acid-rain-scare-and-science-industrial-complex

Once upon a time, American firms built with the long term in view, and the government did not try to hinder them. Today, thanks to reckless federal government spending, we are living hand-to-mouth, accumulating massive debts, and soon enough will be broke.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/going-broke

“The Civil War was really the watershed,” he wrote Meyer. “Lincoln was America's first dictator, and almost all the Republican Acts were monstrous.”Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/letters-frank-meyer-reveal-rothbards-views-lincoln-slavery-and-popular-sovereignty

The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk has focused attention on political violence. Ludwig von Mises, not surprisingly, understood that tying morality to politicized state helps create the climate where political violence is prevalent.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/mises-separating-morality-and-state

During the Middle Ages, taxation was considered to be appropriate only as an extreme measure in times of emergency, and as a last resort. Kings were expected to subsist on revenues from their own private property.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-taxes-were-so-hated-middle-ages

Leftists seek to create a new society that supposedly is peaceable. However, they also celebrate violence done against political opponents, something that Murray Rothbard understood as undermining every supposed peaceful goal they claim to be pursuing.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/individualism-and-violence-identitarian-left

According to mainstream economists, inflation aids economic growth while deflation impairs growth. Austrian economists, however, point out that in much of US history, economic growth was accompanied by deflation.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/inflation-and-economic-growth

Advocates for US military intervention have invoked the war against the Barbary pirates as justification. Yet, an examination of that conflict shows that President Jefferson's actions were limited and followed the direction of Congress.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/jeffersons-war-barbary-pirates-unjustified-password-military-intervention

Was Jackson's victory over the Second Bank of the United States a triumph for liberty, or did it merely expand federal authority under the guise of constraining it? His legacy is complicated, but there is much we can learn from it.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/complicated-legacy-andrew-jacksons-bank-war

The Renaissance period is seen as mostly positive by historians, but the sinister development of absolutism and the imperial state complicates the legacy of that time.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/absolutism-and-reason-state-rothbard-growth-statism

Although the political establishment claims the Comey indictment represents an unprecedented moment in our history, the truth is much different. Federal prosecutors have a long history of bringing unjustified, politically-motivated prosecutions.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/james-comey-not-innocent-victim-lawfare-he-helped-create

By trying to protect dairy farmers and raise their incomes, the government created a massive cheese surplus, then gave it away, thus harming the farmers they were trying to support.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/wheels-government-cheese

Created to assure that newly-freed slaves would receive equal legal protection, the Fourteenth Amendment has come to dominate federal jurisprudence. This is not a good thing.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-fourteenth-amendment-empowers-judicial-activism

Individual voters have little reason to become informed. Politicians have strong incentives to pander rather than persuade. Partisans are rewarded for tribal loyalty rather than epistemic integrity.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/when-political-violence-becomes-signal

President Trump's latest anti-broadcast media actions are portrayed in legacy media as being unprecedented. While they definitely are outrageous, they hardly are the first time presidents have used federal agencies to go after broadcast opposition.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/presidents-have-long-history-using-fcc-silence-their-critics

Men can be trained to regard their exploiters as the virtuous architects of safety and prosperity, as so many so-called "citizens" in America are so relentlessly trained to do. Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-government-so-loved-so-many

The irony of the Jimmy Kimmel controversy is that he owed his spot at ABC precisely because his work was non-political. Unfortunately in modern America, professional clowns feel they must become political tools.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/jimmy-kimmel-american-tragedy

“Hate speech” does not exist. At all. That's a concept the Left invented to justify state-enforced censorship of speech the Left doesn't like.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/hate-speech-isnt-real-and-pam-bondi-enemy-freedom

One of the reasons Charlie Kirk was considered "divisive" was that he spoke out against the civil rights laws, which was interpreted as his supporting Jim Crow segregation. Yet, these laws did not increase liberty but rather imposed a new progressive vision on Americans.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/charlie-kirk-and-sacred-totem-civil-rights

Since the French Revolution, leftism has served as the impetus for many of the state's worst massacres and totalitarian impulses.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/unique-evil-left

Modern political life in the U.S. is increasingly defined by violence and toleration of violence against one's perceived enemies. The murder of Charlie Kirk has exposed the left's endorsement of deadly violence as a political tool.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/dehumanization-charlie-kirk-came-establishment

Political elites insisted that the 9/11 attacks occurred because the US Government lacked power and authority. Unfortunately, the elites got their wish and Americans received war, economic calamity, and massive government debt in return.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/911-attacks-exposed-major-government-failure-americans-learned-wrong-lessons

According to the neo-conservative war hawks, every so-called enemy is the Next Hitler and every year is 1939. The failure to seek new conflicts abroad is equated to the failure of Great Britain and France to stand up to Hitler before World War II broke out.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/every-year-1939-war-hawks

The US and its Western allies may scoff at this challenge, but it only became possible due to high-handedness (to use the kindest word imaginable) and outright illegality of US actions.Original article: https://mises.org/power-market/more-thoughts-brics-and-gold-versus-us-and-dollar

The hackneyed argument for government regulation of speech -- yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater -- has always been a red herring. As Murray Rothbard wrote, private property rights should be front-and-center when dealing with free speech issues.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/you-cant-yell-chicken-jockey-crowded-theater-except-when-you-can

The media is spinning President Trump‘s “trade deals” as a “victory” for the White House. Yet, when we break down these “deals” into their particulars, we find that American producers and consumers will be worse off than before.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/tariffs-wont-spawn-good-trade-deals