Economics

Why were central banks established? As Richard Salsman summarizes in his latest TOS article, “The End of Central Banking, Part I”: As government grows and spends more, politicians seek to avoid the electoral consequences of raising taxes and try to rely more on borrowing and printing money, policies that central…

Here is the introduction to Richard Salsman’s article “The End of Central Banking, Part I,” from the forthcoming (Spring 2013) issue of The Objective Standard: This year marks the centenary of the law establishing the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve (Fed), so it’s an appropriate time to assess the…

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is a modern American hero. He has put millions of products ranging from books to movies to clothing to groceries within easy reach of millions of customers. But long before there was Amazon, before there was an internet or even computers, there was the…

Ari Armstrong reviews Beyond Politics: The Roots of Government Failure, by Randy Simmons.

Argues, via a mountain of evidence, that the ultimate purpose of central banking is not to “correct market failures” or “prevent financial crises” or the like, but to finance fiscally profligate governments and welfare states.

“A curse on machines! Every year their increasing power condemns to pauperism millions of workers, taking their jobs away from them, and with their jobs their wages, and with their wages their bread! A curse on machines!” That is the cry rising from ignorant prejudice, and whose echo resounds in…

A report issued earlier this year from the Property and Environment Research Center shows how capitalism helped save honey bees (and thus related markets) from “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD), a problem sometimes hysterically reported by the media. The paper’s authors, agricultural economists Randal R. Rucker and Walter N. Thurman, conclude:…

“In an unprecedented fall, the US drops out of the top ten of the 2012 Legatum Prosperity Index,” reports the London’s Legatum Institute. We’re now twelfth in this ranking. But what does that mean? There’s good reason to be skeptical of the index’s rankings. Much of the data derives from…

With the new web startup Duolingo, students of foreign language now have an ingenious and free alternative to purchasing formal classes or language-learning software. Users can create an account with Duolingo (or sign on through Facebook or Twitter) and immediately start web software-based language lessons in Spanish, German, French, or…

Ken Dupin is providing an innovative alternative for the millions of Americans who care for their aging parents. His product, the MedCottage, is a pre-fabricated, modular, and portable “three-room apartment equipped like a hospital room. There are safety rails, lighted floorboards, and a wall with a first-aid kit and defibrillator…