2023 – Page 69 – The Investment Vault

Last Day to Double Your Gift

The Mises Institute sends a big THANK YOU to everyone who already donated to our Fall Campaign this week. Your support helps us continue to make the sound economic principles of Mises, Rothbard, Hazlitt, and Hayek free to the world at a time when they are

September 30, 2023

Is the Money in Your Checking Account Yours or the Bank’s?

When Silicon Valley Bank and other banks failed earlier this year, the debate over the sustainability of fractional reserve banking resurfaced. Under fractional reserve banking, banks keep only a fraction of customers’ deposits in reserve. The difference is bank credit, such as government debt, mortgages,

September 30, 2023

Friday Feature: Freedom Learning Academy

Colleen Hroncich I recently toured Freedom Learning Academy in Overland Park, Kansas, and was really inspired by what I saw there. Josiah Enyart was a public school teacher and coach for more than 10 years. Over time, he started to get a bit disillusioned by what he was seeing in

Arizona Wants to Take Condo Owners’ Property and Sell it to Somebody Else

Anastasia P. Boden and Nathaniel Lawson Arizona thinks that some people ought to be able to take other peoples’ property when they can put it to “better use.” We think not. Under the Arizona Condominium Act, a supermajority of condo owners can force a minority of owners to sell

Totalitarian Ideals and Not Living by Lies

More than forty years ago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn urged his fellow Russians “not to live by lies.” In our politicized age, his words ring truer than ever. Original Article: Totalitarian Ideals and Not Living by Lies

Assessing the BRICS Expansion: Debunking Expectations

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

New York’s Hate Speech Law Violates the First Amendment

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,

Reinstating ‘Net Neutrality’ Is to Ignore Reality

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

Living Libertarian: Brief Biographies

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