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Clarification on Cantillon Effects

Steve Horwitz’s thoughts reinforced my own inkling that I should spell out what I had always filed away as “the Austrian point about Cantillon effects.” So the following is what I would have said, had you asked me a month ago. Note that I speak for myself, and I’m not even saying this is what […]

You Might Be Talkin to a Market Monetarist If…

…you ask this clarifying question on his blog and you genuinely don’t know what answer to expect: Thanks Nick. One more from me please. (And I’m not asking these to trap you, I’m asking so I fairly recapitulate what your position is.) If the Fed were to suddenly dump its mortgage-backed securities and replace them […]

Gold Money Apparently Existed Before the Big Bang

It is hilarious to me that even the harshest critics of the Mengerian account of the origin of money, end up relying on anthropological evidence that is in total agreement with his story, and makes little sense with the rival State narrative. For a recent example, consider the following extraordinary passage from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: It […]

Admission of Error Is a Rarity in the Geeconosphere

[UPDATE: I swapped out one of the arguments in light of re-reading Glasner and realizing I misunderstood one of his defenses.] Consider the following hypothetical argument: DAVIE: Man, that George Lucas doesn’t have anything to teach us about redemption. If you watch his classic Star Wars movies, he offers a warning about people succumbing to […]

Life Insurance, the Forgotten Savings Vehicle

Most Americans today know precious little of their country’s history, besides things like certain U.S. presidents and big wars. For example, most Americans don’t know that because of Constitutional concerns, the Eisenhower Administration had to cite the need to quickly move tanks and troops around to fend off an invasion, as a national security justification […]

Murphy on Mises on Money

I thought this particular lecture (from the Mises Academy class that just ended, where we covered Ludwig von Mises’ Theory of Money and Credit) turned out pretty nicely. So I asked The Man if we could put it up for the world, and he agreed. Here is the audio: and here is the PowerPoint I […]

Reminder About Mises Academy Class

Remember kids, my class on Mises’ first major work starts tomorrow; infomercial is here. As I said on Facebook: If you don’t have the money for it, put it on credit. I don’t think we will have the time to talk too much about clearinghouses, but Mises does do a great job explaining that in […]