Economics

Why Government Deficits and Debt Do Matter

by Richard M. Ebeling May 20, 2015

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported in early May that for the month of April 2015 the Federal government ran a budget surplus, taking in more in taxes than it laid out in expenditures. Don’t be fooled by one month, especially when it was a month when people filed and paid their taxes. Government deficits and growing debt are ...

The Myth of Global Gluts and the Reality of Market Change

by Richard M. Ebeling April 29, 2015

You may not have noticed it when out buying things in the marketplace in the context of your personal budget, but according to the Wall Street Journal (April 24, 2015) the world is awash with too much stuff. We seemingly have too much of, well, almost everything: too many raw material commodities, too much capital, and too much ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Minimum Wage

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 28, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger discusses the hot topics of the day. This week, the folly of the minimum wage. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast here.

The Libertarian Angle: Austrian Economics

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 7, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger discusses the hot topics of the day. This week: the principles of Austrian ecnomics with special guest Richard M. Ebeling. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast here.

Monopoly and Aggression

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2015

The concepts monopoly and aggression are intimately related, like lock and key, or mother and child. You cannot fully understand the first without understanding the second. Most of us are taught to think of a monopoly as simply any lone seller of a good or service, but that definition is fraught with problems, as Murray Rothbard, Austrian economists generally, and ...

Economic Delusions, Political Demagoguery, and Ideological Deceptions

by Richard M. Ebeling March 10, 2015

We live in a time, as, indeed, mankind has lived already for a long time, in which economic delusions, political demagoguery, and ideological deceptions abound due to the power lusting of those who wish to gain control of government to serve their own ends at others’ expense. Suppose someone were to ask you the easiest and quickest way to drive ...

The Folly and Presumption of Big Government Social Engineers

by Richard M. Ebeling March 3, 2015

One of the social mythologies of our time is that it is in the power and ability of governments to remake society in any image or shape that those with political authority consider “good,” “right,” and “just” for mankind. No other idea has caused more horror and hardship in modern times. The extreme attempts at such “social engineering” in the ...

Consumers’ Sovereignty and Natural vs. Contrived Scarcities

by Richard M. Ebeling February 23, 2015

One of the great myths about the capitalist system is the presumption that businessmen make profits at the expense of the consumers and workers in society. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the free market, consumers are the sovereign rulers who determine what gets produced, and with what qualities and features. The sovereign consumers also determine who will ...

TGIF: The Economic Way of Thinking about Health Care

by Sheldon Richman February 20, 2015

I realize Mike Lupica is a sports columnist -- and that Howard Cosell called sports "the toy department of life" -- but maybe that's what makes Lupica's recent declaration about Obamacare all the more representative a reaction. Appearing on a morning cable news program, Lupica declared that “health insurance for all is a noble idea.” He repeated this a few ...

Two Kinds of Income Inequality

by Sheldon Richman January 22, 2015

Income inequality is back in the news, propelled by an Oxfam International report and President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. The question is whether government needs to do something about this — or whether government needs to undo many things. Measuring income inequality is no simple thing, which is one source of disagreement between ...

Why Washington and Wall Street Are Better Off Living Apart (video)

by John Tamny January 6, 2015

On December 18, 2014 John Tamny delivered this talk to a private audience at The Future of Freedom Foundation. John Tamny is Political Economy editor at Forbes, a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research & Trading, and editor of RealClearMarkets.com

TGIF: Monopoly and Aggression

by Sheldon Richman December 19, 2014

The concepts monopoly and aggression are intimately related, like lock and key, or mother and son. You cannot fully understand the first without understanding the second. Most of us are taught to think of a monopoly as simply any lone seller of a good or service, but this definition is fraught with problems, as Murray Rothbard, Austrian economists generally, and ...