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 | Frank Shostak |
| Why We Now Measure Gold in Dollars — and Not the Other Way Around |
| Prior to 1933, the name "dollar" was used to refer to a unit of gold that had a weight of 23.22 grains. Since there are 480 grains in one ounce, this means that the name dollar also stood for 0.048 ounce of gold. This in turn, means that one ounce of gold referred to $20.67.Observe that $20.67 is not the price of one ounce of gold in terms of dollars as popular thinking has it, for there is no such entity as a dollar. Dollar is just a name for 0.048 ounce of gold. On this Rothbard wrote,No one pWednesday, February 10, 2021 |
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 | Lew Rockwell |
What Exactly Is ‘Racism’  |
| I want to look at two words that the State and its hangers-on have employed with much success on behalf of increases in government power. One is racism. The other is equality.
What exactly is “racism”? We almost never hear a definition. I doubt anyone really knows what it is. If you’re inclined to dispute this, ask yourself why, if racism truly is something clear and determinate, there is such ceaseless disagreement over which thoughts and behaviors are “racist” and which are not?
If put on theThursday, February 4, 2021 |
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 | Tom DiLorenzo |
Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850): Between the French and Marginalist Revolutions  |
| CLAUDE FREDERIC BASTIAT was a French economist, legislator, and writer who championed private property, free markets, and limited government. Perhaps the main underlying theme ofBastiat's writings was that the free market was inherently a source of "economic harmony" among individuals, as long as government was restricted to the function of protecting the lives, liberties, and property of citizens from theft or aggression.Thursday, February 4, 2021 |
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| Frank Shostak |
 Why Fractional-Reserve Banking Would Be Limited in an Unhampered Market  |
| The so-called multiplier arises as a result of the fact that banks are legally permitted to use money that is placed in demand deposits. Banks treat this type of money as if it was loaned to them, thus loaning it out while simultaneously allowing depositors to spend that money.RELATED: "Austrians, Fractional Reserves, and the Money Multiplier" by Robert BatemarcoFor example, if John places $100 in demand deposit at Bank One he doesn't relinquish his claim over the deposited $100. He has unlimiteTuesday, December 22, 2020 |
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| Lew Rockwell |
 Can Anarcho-Capitalism Work |
| The term “anarcho-capitalism” has, we might say, rather an arresting quality. But while the term itself may jolt the newcomer, the ideas it embodies are compelling and attractive, and represent the culmination of a long development of thought.
If I had to boil it down to a handful of insights, they would be these: (1) each human being, to use John Locke’s formulation, “has a property in his ownWednesday, December 9, 2020 |
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| Lew Rockwell |
Why I Am an Anarcho-Capitalist  |
| A great many people – more than ever, probably – describe themselves as supporters of the free market today, in spite of the unrelenting propaganda against it. And that’s great. Those statements of support, however, are followed by the inevitable but: but we need government to provide physical security and dispute resolution, the most critical services of all.
Almost without a thought, people who otherwise support the market want to assign to government the production of the most important goodsTuesday, November 24, 2020 |
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| Frank Shostak |
| Inflation Is Not About Price Increases |
| There is almost complete unanimity among economists and various commentators that inflation is about general increases in the prices of goods and services. From this it is established that anything that contributes to price increases sets in motion inflation.A fall in unemployment or a rise in economic activity is seen as a potential inflationary trigger. Some other triggers, such as rises in commodity prices or workers’ wages, are also regarded as potential threats.If inflation is just a generaMonday, November 16, 2020 |
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 | George F. Smith - Barbarous Relic |
| The Virtue of Hoarding |
| Most people would admit to hoarding money only with a tinge of guilt, because to be a hoarder carries with it the suggestion of being a miser — a Scrooge. And yet, every participant in an economy based on indirect exchange holds some amount of money and can be said to be hoarding it, that is, declining to spend it. Hoarding is a strategy for achieving personal goals or for dealing with economic uncertainty.Monday, October 19, 2020 |
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| Lew Rockwell |
 What Should Freedom Lovers Do |
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How can one combine professional life with the advancement of liberty? Of course it is presumptuous to offer a definitive answer since all jobs and careers in the market economy are subject to the forces of the division of labor.Because a person focuses on one task doesn't mean that he or she isn't great at many tasks; it means only that the highest productive gains for everyone come from dividing tasks up among many people of a wide range of talents.Thursday, October 15, 2020 |
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 | Robert Blumen |
| Does Gold Mining Matter |
| Mine supply has very little influence on the price of gold.
Anyone who agrees that the gold trade is a market would accept the premise that the price depends on supply and demand. Where most analysts go wrong is to analyze gold using what I will call the consumption model. This model counts the current year's mine production plus scrap (and, in some versions, central-bank sales) as supply, and the current year's purchases of jewelry, coins, bars, and industrial gold as demand.Wednesday, September 23, 2020 |
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 | Alasdair Macleod - Finance and Eco. |
| The fiat money quantity (FMQ) |
| Summary : This paper seeks to establish a measure of currency quantity that helps economists identify and estimate the risk that confidence in fiat currencies might be significantly eroded or even vanish altogether. It is this phenomenon that was referred to in the great European currency inflations of the 1920s as Katastrophenhausse, or a crack-up boom, when ordinary people lose all confidence in a fiat currency, disposing of it as rapidly as possible instead preferring ownership of goods.This isThursday, September 17, 2020 |
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| Murray N. Rothbard |
| The Gold Standard Before the Civil War |
| The Gold Standard Before the Civil War, video by Murray . RothbardWednesday, September 9, 2020 |
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| Lew Rockwell |
| John Maynard Keynes, Immoralist |
| John Maynard Keynes was born in 1883 and died in 1946. Henry Hazlitt was born in 1894, eleven years after Keynes, and lived much longer, until 1993. Their lives and loyalties are a study in contrast, and mostly of choices born of internal conviction, in Hazlitt's case, or lack thereof, Keynes's case.Monday, September 7, 2020 |
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| Lew Rockwell |
| The Truth About War and the State |
| Not long ago I was thinking about the legacy of Murray N. Rothbard, the brilliant scholar and the creator of the libertarian movement, as well as a dear friend to both Ron and me. Would that movement have come into existence without Murray? I don’t think so. And whatever might have developed in its place would undoubtedly have been less pro-peace, and more willing to reach an accord with the warfare stSaturday, September 5, 2020 |
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| Lew Rockwell |
 The Libertarian Paradox |
| As libertarians attempt to persuade others of their position, they encounter an interesting paradox. On the one hand, the libertarian message is simple. It involves moral premises and intuitions that in principle are shared by virtually everyone, including children. Do not hurt anyone. Do not steal from anyone. Mind your own business.
A child will say, “I had it first.” There is an intuitive sense according to which the first user of a previously unowned good holds moral priority over latecomersMonday, August 24, 2020 |
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 | Antal E. Fekete - Gold University |
| The Invention Of Discounting |
| Sunday, August 23, 2020 |
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 | Thorsten Polleit |
| The Fiasco of Fiat Money |
| I. Today's worldwide paper-, or "fiat-," money regime is an economically and socially destructive scheme — with far-reaching and seriously harmful economic and societal consequences, effects that extend beyond what most people would imagine.
Fiat money is inflationary; it benefits a few at the expense of many others; it causes boom-and-bust cycles; it leads tooverindebtedness; it corrupts society's morals; and it will ultimately end in a depression on a grand scale.Saturday, July 11, 2020 |
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| Frank Shostak |
| Is Money Created by Government Decree |
| According to popular view people accept money because of a government decree.1 A government decree it is argued makes a particular thing accepted as a general medium of exchange. But, does it make sense?Demand for a good arises from its perceived benefit. For instance, people demand food because of the nourishment it offers them. It is different with money people demand it not for direct use in consumption but in order to exchange it for other goods and services.Money is not useful in itself, buSaturday, July 4, 2020 |
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 | Nathan Lewis - New World Economics |
| Blame Gold |
| We have been talking about The Midas Paradox (2015), by Scott Sumner.
July 23, 2017: The Midas Paradox (2015), by Scott Sumner.
As you probably guessed from the three-word title, the book can be summarized in two words, which are: “blame gold.”
This, as we have seen, is actually a relatively new notion, even if it enjoys some popularity today. The general consensus, which later (after 1950) became the Keynesian consensus, did not blame gold, or indeed, monetary policy in general, for the Great DFriday, July 3, 2020 |
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