Free Republic

Fox News host Tucker Carlson took to the airwaves of this popular show last night to lambaste Austrian economics and libertarianism, which he views as twin pillars of a failed ideology that doesn't protect American workers and their interests.The GOP, he argues, is in thrall... Fox News host Tucker Carlson took to the airwaves of this popular show last night to lambaste Austrian economics and libertarianism, which he views as twin pillars of a failed ideology that doesn't protect American workers and their interests.The GOP, he argues, is in thrall to free-market corporate interests and esoteric economic theories from dusty...

The late great Murray Rothbard gave a series of lectures in 1986 at New York Polytechnic University entitled "The American Economy and the End of Laissez-Faire: 1870 to World War II." Fortunately, somebody recorded them. Lecture 2: The Railroading of the American People.

Congratulations go to Forbes columnist John Tamny and editor of Real Clear Markets for producing the "Idiot's Guide to Austrian Economics'. Ironically, that is not exactly what Tamny set out to do. The actual title of Tamny's article is "The Closing Of The Austrian School's Economic Mind". Point by Point Look Tamny: "It’s well known that some Austrians have a major problem with 'fractional reserve banking' whereby banks pay for liabilities (deposits) by virtue of turning those liabilities into assets (interest paying loans). Instead, they borrow money from depositors seeking a return on their savings, and who don’t need access...

Former Republican congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul has launched his own K-12 home-school curriculum to provide an “education in liberty like no other.” The curriculum, which includes courses on “the economics of the Austrian school,” provides its K-5 program for free, meaning that students and families will be able to learn under Ron Paul for six years “without spending a dime,” according to one of the curriculum’s high school teachers, Ludwig von Mises Institute senior fellow Tom Woods. “Here, students learn the basics of Western Civilization and Western liberty — how it was won, how it is being...

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls out lots of folks for predicting that our fiscal and monetary policies would produce hyperinflation. Shouldn’t these people rethink their basic economic models, he asks? That’s a fair enough point. If your model was telling you that zero-interest rates or budget deficits at recent levels would produce very high price inflation, there’s probably something wrong with it. Yet the past couple of years have been truly extraordinary. Opportunities for revising the way you think about the economy have arisen over and over again. The only thing you needed to take advantage of these...

David Bahnsen of Newport Beach, California is a Senior Vice President of Morgan Stanley, and also serves on the Board of Advisers of the California Recovery Project with Dr. Arthur Laffer. Bahnsen has abandoned his earlier support of the Ron Paul crusade, and now describes himself as an "economically literate Republican." He is the author of "The Undiscerning and Dangerous Appreciation of Ron Paul." Bahnsen says "It is the ironic that Ron Paul's alleged praiseworthiness comes from his devotion to the Constitution, when in fact, he has emphatically rejected it." Bahnsen has many family and business connections with libertarians. His...

In a recent screed masquerading as the thoughts of a Nobel prize winner in economics, Paul Krugman excoriates those who speak of fear: fear of a debt crisis, of runaway inflation, of a disastrous plunge in the dollar. Scare stories are very much on politicians' minds. As Krugman explains, such worries are irrational and certainly untrue: None of these scare stories reflect anything that is actually happening, or is likely to happen. And while the threats are imaginary, fear of these imaginary threats has real consequences: an absence of any action to deal with the real crisis, the suffering now...

The main reason why so many state and local governments are bankrupt, or on the verge of bankruptcy, is the combination of government-run monopolies and government-employee unions. Government-employee unions have vastly more power than do private-sector unions because the entities they work for are typically monopolies. When the employees of a grocery store, for example, go on strike and shut down the store, consumers can simply shop elsewhere, and the grocery-store management is perfectly free to hire replacement workers. In contrast, when a city teachers' or garbage-truck drivers' union goes on strike, there is no school and no garbage collection...

It’s no accident that Austrian economics is newly popular. It provides the best explanation for the business cycle we just lived through. But the resurgent popularity of Austrian economics may actually be hampering the ability of the Federal Reserve to reflate the economy with low interest rate policies. Businesses, now aware of the dangers of a low inflation- sparked economic bubble, may simply be refusing to fall for the age-old boom-bust trap. The Austrian theory of business cycles is rather straightforward: 1) In a market economy, lower interest rates are a sign that more wealth is available in society for...

OBJECTIVE Paul Krugman debates Robert Murphy on Keynesian vs. Austrian biz cycle theory at Mises Innstitute. Video explaining the challenge.

Introduction: The former Global Affairs editor of MONEYWORLD, Richard Maybury is one of the most respected business and economics analysts in America. His articles have appeared in major publications. Books include "Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?" "Whatever Happened to Justice?" and "Evaluating Books: What Would Thomas Jefferson Think of This?" His current interest is "The Coming Great War." His writings have been endorsed by top business leaders, and he is a consultant to investment firms in the U.S. and Europe. He is editor of the newsletter Richard Maybury's U.S. & World Early Warning Report. Daily Bell: We understand that your...

It’s Peter Schiff, Cassandra of the collapse, sounding off on Bloomberg TV over the weekend. He also predicts a bear market for another five to 10 years, with lows for the Dow somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 but actually much worse in real dollars as the U.S. is crushed by hyperinflation. The only solution? Bring on the apocalypse and let’s muddle through. If anyone needs me, I’ll be out back killing myself.

- The only thing that made me gasp this week was that the banks suddenly dumped $22 billion in bonds last week. Kinda weird, but things have been more weird, I think. Of course, the Treasury is still issuing debt with both hands, bringing us to almost $7.9 trillion. The interest on the national debt totaled $321.6 billion in 2004, which works out to an average of 4.1%, and it, and the total debt, will obviously be higher this year. - Nursing a killer hangover and flipping through the TV dial in my boredom, I ended up watching C-SPAN 2,...

"[Sociologist Ernst] Troeltsch distinguished between church, sect, and mysticism as primary types of religious life. The church is more peremptorily inclusive and achieves greater accommodation to worldly institutions. The sect demands voluntary commitment from its members, is more perfectionistic in its aims, and often adopts a critical stance toward existing social arrangements..." -- Donald A. Nielsen I recently took the long form of the Are You an Austrian? quiz, which is about whether I agree with economists like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, not about whether I have the same country of origin as the new governor of California....