Last month, Colorado governor Jared Polis ended statewide mask mandates and social-distancing provisions, stating that “the emergency is over.” This, of course, does not mean Colorado is now laissez-faire in terms of covid. Public higher education institutions—thanks to Polis’ tacit approval—still have free rein in terms of imposing vaccine and mask mandates, and in forcing classes to “go online” whenever the…
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In all times of state dominance, the instability of the system gives rise to two types of reformers: the moderates who want to work within the system but end up defending it, and the radicals who have the clarity to see that the only real solution is upheaval. If the latter prevail — and they often have in the history…
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Emilee Carpenter is a New York-based photographer targeting a state law she says forces her to create messages that violate her beliefs – specifically, those regarding same-sex “weddings.” Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse is an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the law firm representing Carpenter . . . . [Read More] The post At Issue: Unchecked Gov’t Power Over Faith-Based Speech appeared first on WallBuilders.…
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The historian and economist Deirdre McCloskey often laments the power that pessimism and despair seems to have over us. In her review of Thomas Piketty’s doorstop-sized book on capitalism and inequality—oh, in that long-forgotten blissful past when our media and politics were dominated not by viruses and misinformation and the racist-sexist industrial complex—she noted that “pessimism sells.” More recently, in her…
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Samuel Kirkland Lothrop (1804-1886) graduated from Harvard in 1825 and from the Harvard divinity school in 1828. He was a minister at the Unitarian Church in Dover, NH (1829-1834) and at the Brattle Square Church in Boston (1834-1876). Lothrop was a delegate to the Massachusetts state constitutional convention (1853), and served on the Boston school […] The post Sermon –…
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Design & Assembly is the second pin (after Imagination) in the Economics For Business GPS system — the toolset to help entrepreneurs navigate their business environment. We talk to Brett Lindell, CEO of Pantheon Holdings (which includes Aegis Exteriors and Fortress Roofing) about his Design & Assembly approach that has helped him build a fast-growing business from scratch in the crowded,…
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I. THE STARTING CONDITIONS In this article want to explain that a rapid departure from the free market system (or what is left of it today) is taking place before our eyes, and that this is a development that endangers not only prosperity but also the peaceful coexistence of people in this world. To explain this to you and to…
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The Engineer The ideal of conscious control of social phenomena has made its greatest influence felt in the economic field. The present popularity of “economic planning” is directly traceable to the prevalence of the scientistic ideas we have been discussing. As in this field the scientistic ideals manifest themselves in the particular forms which they take in the hands of…
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The Chinese regime is doubling down in its “zero covid” strategy. In recent weeks, new covid cases have been detected in several cities. In a world of the more-contagious omicron variant, this is to be expected. But what has been the Chinese state’s response? It’s more of the same. Lockdowns, travel suspensions, and more. NBC reports: Tianjin, which detected China’s…
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When assailing global governance, pundits rarely comment on its impact on small countries. Yet the degree to which small countries are ignored by global institutions—like the G7, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank—helps to illustrate how institutions of global governance tend to primarily reflect the values of managerial elites from large and wealthy states. That is, global policies…
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Back to 2020, the federal government’s covid-mandated shutdown of meat production plants hobbled the nation’s meat production capabilities, leaving farmers with nowhere to send their beef. This resulted in them having to cull cattle and other livestock. The uncertainty caused farmers to scale back their production at the time, which Arun Sundaram told CNBC “can affect production more than a…
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Economists have illuminated our understanding of guilds in medieval Europe, but we still know rather little about their functions in other parts of the world, especially Africa. In the West, the approach has been to question the relevance of guilds as a platform to accentuate economic growth. In economic literature, most agree that guilds inhibited growth in medieval Europe; however, this…
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One of the best-known and most influential present-day treatments of liberty is that of Sir Isaiah Berlin. In his Two Concepts of Liberty, Berlin upheld the concept of “negative liberty”—absence of interference with a person’s sphere of action—as against “positive liberty,” which refers not to liberty at all but to an individual’s effective power or mastery over himself or his…
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Some commentators attribute the latest sharp increase in the Consumer Price Index to businesses pushing prices of goods higher in order to secure higher profits. (See the New York Times article “Democrats Blast Corporate Profits as Inflation Surges,” January 3, 2022). Note that the yearly growth rate of the Consumer Price Index jumped to 6.8 percent in November 2021 from 1.2 percent the…
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To kick off the New Year, Jeff recently had the opportunity to address a Discord channel dedicated to Austrian Economics. His talk focused on the state of economics generally, whether the profession is serving society, how economists failed us throughout the Covid hysteria, and especially the health and relevance of the Austrian school. This is a great survey of the…
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With the almost constant statist apologetics we hear from many government and academic economists1 it is hard to believe that the discipline of economics was once a thorn in the side of the state and its political elite. So commonplace are fallacious economic arguments advocating state control that it sometimes seems that refutation of all of these arguments has become a…
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In a section of Power and Market called “The Problem of Immoral Choices,” Murray Rothbard considers an important objection to the free market, and I’d like in this week’s column to consider some of the points he raises. To understand where he is “coming from,” we have to situate his discussion within the book. Rothbard aims in the book at…
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Income inequality in Latin America is appallingly high, with the richest 10 percent of the population controlling 54 percent of national income. According to the 2021 Regional Human Development Report’s “Trapped High Inequality and Low Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean,” published by the United Nations Development Program, Latin American countries record higher inequality and worse social indicators than countries…
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Money supply growth rose slightly in November, rising above October’s twenty-one-month low. Even with November’s rise, though, money supply growth remains far below the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years. During thirteen months between April 2020 and April 2021, money supply growth in the United States often climbed above 35 percent, well above even the “high” levels experienced from 2009 to…
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Tens of thousands of Christians have been killed by Muslim groups in attacks in central and northern Nigeria, and there seems to be no let up. The western African nation is ranked #9 on Open Doors’ 2021 World Watch List of countries where it is most difficult to follow Jesus Christ – and according to Open […] The post Nigerian Christians…
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