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My father died at the age of 91 on December 2. He was not a man to make profound observations. Read more

In reading any dialogue, you know in advance that the guy asking the questions is the guy who wrote Read more

Let me present a syllogism. 1. Theft is immoral. 2. Inflation is theft. 3. Fractional reserve banking is inflationary. 4. Central banking is government-guaranteed fractional reserve banking. 5. Immorality leads to judgment.

Therefore, we should expect. . . ?

Economists, other than Murray Rothbard's disciples, never associate the concept of theft with monetary inflation. They speak of theft in terms of reduced efficiency and increased transactions costs, not morality.

When it comes to avoiding morality, they are worse than lawyers. A lawyer might appeal to morality if he had a really weak case. This appeal might persuade a jury. An economist would rather lose the argument than appeal to morality. He regards the shame of invoking morality as personally more inefficient than winning the argument by an appeal to morality. Once you appeal to morality, academic economic theory collapses. Economics was the first science to be self-consciously designed to avoid moral questions. Read more

One of the standard arguments against a gold standard is this: "There’s not enough gold to facilitate all of the transactions in a free market economy." This is an old criticism. It was a lot more popular before the desktop computer industry started cutting prices every year, while increasing product quality. These days, people expect falling prices in desktop computers.

What if they expected price cuts in all other industries?

If you have ever wondered what would happen if a relatively fixed supply of above-ground gold were the primary medium of exchange, this essay may help clarify things.

Most people have no conception of what you are about to read. They are not interested. They don’t know that their futures will depend heavily on the answers to these questions that will be adopted by the Federal Reserve System’s policy-makers. They think, "I can’t be bothered with monetary theory." Therein lies your investment opportunity. Read more

There is great confusion about the gold standard, for the same reason that there is great confusion about the free market: hardly anyone understands it. This includes academic economists.

Let me get in my fiat monetary unit's two cents' worth:

There are proposals for various monetary systems that are in some way tied to gold. There have been a lot of these proposals over the centuries. They all have one thing in common: they are ignored today by academic economists, commercial bankers, central bankers, national governments, the general public, and CNBC. Well, perhaps not ignored. More like ridiculed. Read more

A cartel is an organization made up of senior managers or their representatives in an industry. Read more

This is a lecture to a clas Read more

The story you are about to read is true. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent. Read more

Every civilization and every society within a particular civilization rests on a series of presupp Read more

Every few weeks, I give a lecture to a group of about 15 men and women who are taking a month-long  Read more

Other than "misunderstanding America’s divorce laws," I cannot think of any more expensive widely Read more

In December, 1976, I was a staff member for Congressman Ron Paul. Read more

Sometimes we set inappropriate targets for ourselves. Read more

Early this morning, a once-a-century event took place. Read more

Scott Crossfield, 84, died last Wednesday when his single-engine Cessna crashed in north Georgia. Read more

Mental ability declines with age. Read more

FBLA stands for Future Business Leaders of America. Read more

I have two major unfulfilled goals in life. Read more

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) is not widely regarded as a major figure of twentieth-century economic Read more

The first lesson we learn in a course in economics is that there is scarcity. Read more

Those who are devotees of the libertarian movement have an advantage over other promoters of  Read more

One of my strongest recollections is my 25th birthday. Read more

Yesterday, I lectured half a dozen high school students on the elements of leadership. Read more