Spoken Mises

The myth that the CRA would not be harmful to bank-industry profits was hidden for years by the Fed-created housing bubble, which allowed for easy refinancing of all the bad debt. But now that the bubble has burst, all those unqualified borrowers — whom the government calls "subprime" — are defaulting. The bursting of the Fed-generated housing bubble is the reason why the CRA scam was not exposed until now.

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The CRA Scam and its Defenders (1.56 MB)

State campaigns for the welfare of children have long been a major justification for the expansion of Leviathan. This is the primary basis for the war on drugs, which has robbed us of so many civil liberties. It is the basis for the nationalization of education that is taking place, administration by administration, in the name of preventing any child from being left behind. If the Internet is ever regulated in the United States the way it is in China and parts of Europe, it will be in the name of protecting the children. Indeed, it is possible to erect a totalitarian state in the name of helping the children.

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But What About the Children? (1.40 MB)

A memorably painful part of my graduate education consisted of my attempts to read and understand Samuelson's landmark book Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947), a treatise in mathematical economic theory, patterned after classical thermodynamics, that set the tone for much of what the cleverest mainstream economists would do for decades to come.

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The Dangers of Samuelson's Economic Method (2.68 MB)

Over the past few months, I have become increasingly irritated with the confident press claim that recessions lead to lower rates of price inflation. For reasons that I myself do not understand, a recent Wall Street Journal piece pushed me over the edge, and the article you are now reading is the fruit of my frustration. By the end, I hope to convince you that both theory and history show that economic downturns lead to higher price inflation, other things equal.

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Are Recessions Deflationary? (1.82 MB)

John T. Flynn writes that it is government system that accepts responsibility to make the economic system work at full energy, using the device of state-created purchasing power effected by means of government borrowing and spending, and which organizes the economic life of the people into industrial and professional groups to subject the system to control under the supervision of the state.

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What Is Fascism? (11.40 MB)

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Prison Nation (1.51 MB)

The positivist-empiricist doctrine, which forms the core of today's mainstream economics, is not only an intellectual failure; it also encourages — actually provokes — social relativism, thereby opening the door to anti-free-market policies, which, once set into motion, are difficult to reign in. In that sense, positivism is, if put into practice, an anti-capitalist doctrine.

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Mises's Apriorism Against Relativism in Economics (5.12 MB)

Paper, considered as a material whereof to make money, has none of the requisite qualities in it. It is too plentiful, and too easily come at. It can be had anywhere, and for a trifle....Paper money appears at first sight to be a great saving, or rather that it costs nothing; but it is the dearest money there is.... The only proper use for paper, in the room of money, is to write promissory notes and obligations of payment in specie upon. The value of such a note is not in the note itself...

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Thomas Paine on Paper Money (3.23 MB)

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Study Guide to Human Action, Chapter XXI (3.97 MB)

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Study Guide to Human Action, Chapter XXII (1.25 MB)