At the conclusion of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg on August 24, 2023, it was announced that the five-country grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, had invited six more countries to join: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and
Thomas A. Berry Social media sites face many choices when they set rules for users. How much speech is permissible? Will conversations be “anything goes” or strictly moderated for relevance and decorum? Will moderation decisions be automated, human, or a mix? Different sites have made different choices,
Thomas A. Firey Usually, when some government proposal is floated in D.C., it should be evaluated with careful, sober policy analysis. But in the case of the Federal Communications Commission’s new “net neutrality” push to more‐or‐less reinstate regulations that were repealed a half‐decade ago, an old internet meme
Libertarian Autobiographies: Moving toward Freedom in Today’s Worldedited by Jo Ann Cavallo and Walter E. BlockPalgrave Macmillan, 2023; xx + 533 pp. Jo Ann Cavallo and Walter Block have done those interested in libertarianism a great service, but they have set the reviewer of their book
On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop take a look at "classical liberalism," a term that has come to mean a variety of different things in recent years. What is the history of classical liberalism? Is classical liberalism distinct from radical
Jeffrey Miron This article appeared on Substack on September 29, 2023. The United Nations has released a report that calls for ending criminal penalties for drug use. Decriminalization is in line with libertarian principles, and penalties against users generate substantial harms, even when jail terms are absent (lower employment prospects,
If we read between the lines, it is apparent that the Fed is hoping that price inflation will fall to politically acceptable levels without any additional tightening, and without a recession. But "hope" is all the Fed has. Original Article: The Fed Holds the Fed Funds Rate
From the WSJ (National Parks Will Close if Government Shuts Down): National parks will close their gates if lawmakers don’t pass legislation to keep the federal government funded by the end of this week. The Biden administration announced Friday morning that sites run by the National Park
Today marks the birthday of Ludwig von Mises, and day 5 of our annual Fall Campaign. The intellectual achievements of Ludwig von Mises make him one of the greatest minds in human history. His contributions to Austrian economics inspired new generations of scholars, from Murray Rothbard
But once a commodity is established as a money on the market, no more money at all is needed. —Murray Rothbard, Taking Money Back The Fed’s distinguishing characteristic is its grant of privilege to buy assets with money it doesn’t have. No other person or institution can