[This is a transcript of a talk given June 17, 2021, at the Mises Institute’s Medical Freedom Summit in Salem, New Hampshire.] On behalf of everyone at the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and the Free Market Medical Association, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. Just over twenty-four years ago the operation of the Surgery Center of…
Continue ReadingAs seas rise, coastal communities face hard choices over ‘managed retreat’
LONDON — With climate change expected to drive a meter or more of sea level rise this century, planning now for “managed retreat” from places facing inundation could help at-risk communities preserve what they value most, researchers and city officials said Tuesday. Whether families opt for floating homes or new ones inland, coming moves also present opportunities to address historical inequities and ensure that protecting…
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Explaining Malinvestment and Overinvestment
Mainstream macroeconomists may—and do—disagree with such an assessment, but Austrian macroeconomists rightly consider the Misesian/Hayekian1 theory of the business cycle to be one of the signal achievements of the entire Austrian School of thought. This Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT) offers a unique perspective on the destructive array of private sector incentives created by central bank manipulations of the supplies…
Continue ReadingWhy Joe Biden Is Keeping the Cap on SALT Deductions
When the Trump administration pushed capping the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes (SALT), the plan was billed as a way to punish Democrats in high-tax states. But the move also increased federal revenues by as much as $100 billion. Now the Biden administration is showing little enthusiasm for undoing Trump's cap. The cap means more federal revenues…
Continue Reading[B-SIDE Podcast] Sweet dreams, Philippines: how to deal with ‘coronasomnia’ and sleep better at night
Follow us on Spotify BusinessWorld B-Side The Philippines isn’t sleeping well. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we’re spending hours in bed, doomscrolling on Twitter, reading endless news articles about virus mutations and vaccine delays. The anxiety-inducing pandemic has done no favors to a country that has a robust business process outsourcing industry that operates in a different time zone. “We have a lot…
Continue ReadingThe Ratification Debate: A Standing Army vs. the Militias
[This passage is excerpted from Murray N. Rothbard's Conceived in Liberty, vol. 5, The New Republic: 1784–1791.] One of the most important aspects of the proposed Constitution was its authorization for a permanent national standing army, a striking contrast to the simple reserve constituting the state militia. The standing army was a particular objection of the Antifederalists, who, in the liberal antimilitary…
Continue ReadingBoP 2021 estimate raised on better economic landscape
The Philippine central bank raised its balance of payment (BoP) projection for this year on expectations of an improved economic landscape here and overseas. It now expects the payment position to post a $7.1 billion surplus by year-end, which is lower than the $16-billion surplus last year but higher than the $6.2-billion surplus projection made in March. “The better-than-expected global…
Continue ReadingWages, Prices, and the Demand for Money: Keynes Got It All Wrong
Markets clear. Or so was the accumulated wisdom in the half century before John Maynard Keynes. The British economist proposed a novel theory of economics in 1936 based on the opposite premise: markets don’t clear. While Keynesian theory is quite complex and his book widely regarded as unreadable, in his system, chronic idleness of useful resources is the rule. In…
Continue ReadingDuterte to finish 29 flagship projects before term ends
The government expects to finish 29 flagship infrastructure projects worth P238.48 billion before President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s term ends in 2022. It has added 13 more projects for a total of 119 projects worth P4.73 trillion, presidential adviser for flagship infrastructure projects Vivencio B. Dizon told a televised news briefing on Friday. The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) has…
Continue ReadingThe Value of Taking Risks
Curiosity and Its Twelve Rules for Liveby F. H. BuckleyEncounter Books, 2021xx + 228 pages Frank Buckley, a Canadian-born lawyer who teaches at the Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, has given us in this remarkable book a philosophy of life, based on unusually wide knowledge and penetrating reflection. In what follows, I shall discuss only a…
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