By: Frank Shostak President Joe Biden has promised to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour. Some economists are of the view that the increase in the minimum wage could cause an increase in unemployment. Other economists think that the increase is unlikely to harm the labor market. Hence, they are of […]
Austrian Economics
The ECB’s dangerous game of ‘Collective Action Clauses’ in the bond market
By: Malachy McDermott There is a clause to European bond sales called a collective action clause. In fact, “all bonds issued by Eurozone member states with maturities exceeding one year, issued after January 1, 2013, have a mandatory collective action clause.” This clause is the first part in a dangerous game of perpetual growth with zero savings that […]
Is the U.S. dollar collapse inevitable?
By: Doug French The Federal Reserve and the confederation of central banks which follow Chair Powell and his lieutenants at the Eccles Building have flooded the world with fiat script which is only limited by Keynesians’ and modern monetary theorists’ imaginations. In this flurry of metaphorical printing, one country, Russia, has loaded its central bank balance […]
Deficit destruction distorts view of government
By: Andrew Moran Washington is the longest-running political show, much like Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. The Swamp continually produces sold-out performances, relying on budget deficits to ensure Capitol Hill’s doors stay open. As politicians depend on imbalances, capital markets, and Federal Reserve debt monetization to remain in power and stay relevant, they […]
COVID-19 and the Socialist Calculation Problem
By: Patrick Barron One hundred years ago Ludwig von Mises wrote the definitive exposure of the impossibility of socialism: “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth.” In a recent Mises Wire essay—”Socialist Robert Heilbroner’s Confession in 1990: ‘Mises Was Right.’“—Gary North sums up the socialist problem succinctly (his emphasis). But Heilbroner failed to present the central argument that Mises had offered. Mises was not talking about the […]