The New Yorker is running a contest. What should we call our era? Some possible candidates: Terrible Twenties, the Age of Emergency, Cold War II, the Omnishambles, the Great Burning, and the Assholocene.
Try as I might, I cannot understand …
China’s economic plan is bankrupt
Over recent months, the mainstream media has been overtaken by fears of a debt crisis in the developing world. The rapid interest-rate rises implemented by Western central banks have refreshed memories of the Eighties, when a similar tightening cycle precipitated …
The Historian of Decline: Ludwig von Mises’s Relevance Today
[This piece was commissioned by Hillsdale College and presented on campus October 27, 2023]
It’s an impossible task to explain the full relevance of Ludwig von Mises, who wrote 25 major works over 70 years of research and teaching. We …
The Destruction of the American Middle Class
Since money-printing went into permanent high gear after the dotcom crash in 2000, the top 1% of households have gained $20 million each in inflation-adjusted net worth. Likewise, the top 0.1% or 131,000 households at the tippy top of the …
The Bank of England is out of control
Quietly, quietly, a revolution is taking place in Britain. Its forum is neither the streets nor the barricades, but committee meetings chaired by economists and overseen by politicians. The Bank of England, now in its 25th year of independence from …
Javier Milei’s Battle Cry for the People
“The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism; there is no better way to stifle that criticism than to attack any isolated voice, any raiser of new doubts, as a profane violator of the wisdom of his ancestors. Another …
How Did Higher Education Become a Cargo Cult?
The “cargo cult” represents an important concept and seems especially so of late. Early observations of such behavior emerged in island cultures exposed to European explorers. Ships unlike anything previously dreamed of arrived full of strange people with wondrous trade …
Bureaucracy’s Unstoppable Parasitic Growth
My Dearest American Friends and Colleagues:
Just in case you didn’t notice, since the 1980s we have developed a very big problem which is growing exponentially. The US national debt has become unsustainable.
To a significant extent this debt is …
The Munk Debate on the Crisis of Liberalism
On Friday, George Will squared off against Sohrab Ahmari in the Munk debate on “the crisis of liberalism.” But the crisis didn’t come up.
Will is a prominent conservative commentator who writes for the Washington Post. Ahmari is an author, …
Britain is facing a second 2008
In selecting the date of the next election, Conservative Party strategists have a choice between catastrophe and oblivion. Following the Labour Party’s micro-landslides in Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire, and with Rishi Sunak’s conference reset leaving opinion polls unmoved, it seems increasingly …
Inflation and the Elephant in the Room
I recently came across this excellent article that explains in simple terms the reason for the current spiking inflation. The author focuses on the Icelandic economy, but the situation he describes and the arguments he puts forward apply to more …
CBDCs: Ultimate Tool of Oppression
‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever,’ said O’Brien, the grand inquisitor of the totalitarian regime in Orwell’s futuristic novel 1984.
Alternatively, you could imagine a sandal.
Last …
Can AI Plan the Economy?
Many tasks that were once considered difficult for computers to do are now routine. Whether transcribing a credit card number or brewing an espresso, we are served by artificial intelligence every day. While a driverless car giving us a ride …
Capitalism is dead: long live Technofeudalism
I once heard an elderly Friedrich von Hayek begin a tirade against socialist planning with a charming personal tale. “The other day,” he said playfully, “I went into a shop. I left with an item that, previously, I had no …
Episode 449 – How BlackRock Conquered the World
What is BlackRock? Where did this financial behemoth come from? How did it gain such incredible power over the world’s wealth? And how is it seeking to leverage that power in shaping the course of human civilization? Find out in …