Mises Institute

Mark Thornton examines the collapse of trust in Washington as government debt, monetary inflation, and foreign wars undermine America’s standing at home and abroad. Drawing on lessons from history, he argues that lasting reform won’t come from political personalities, but from a bottom-up commitment to sound money, individual liberty, and limited government.

2026 is the Year of Rothbard—Murray’s 100th birthday—and we’re celebrating by giving away free copies of Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy through October 31. Grab yours today at https://mises.org/issuesfree

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On this episode of Power and Market, Patrick Newman joins Ryan and Tho for a discussion on Social Security, generational economic tensions, and the latest inflation numbers (spoiler: they’re bad.)

New price inflation data from the federal government shows that rising prices are outpacing wage growth yet again. Overall inflation is broader and bigger than forecasters have expected, and it's not just being caused by the War in Iran.

Be sure to follow the Loot and Lobby podcast at Mises.org/LL

Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu writes that western colonialism of African countries has permanently fixed their institutional direction. This ignores what we know about the history of these nations.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/do-institutions-matter-taking-another-look-claims-daron-acemoglu

Keynesians claim that government debt is no problem because “we owe it to ourselves,” as though owners of US debt don’t care if they are repaid or not. Taxpayers, who actually will pay the debt, are left out of the equation.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/you-are-collateral-forty-three-cents-dollar

The temptation to think of China as an economic juggernaut needs a reality check. While China’s government-dominated economy has many impressive building projects, there are underlying malinvestments that the government continues to subsidize, leading to future problems.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/chinas-economic-miracle-has-run-out-road

Robert Hall and Michael Woodford certainly deserve the Nobel memorial prize. Their work has had a substantial impact, yet significance is not soundness.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/tragic-path-new-keynesianism

A conservatism that does not recognize the efficacy of natural law is no conservatism at all.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/natural-law-principles-conservative-tradition

Mortgage rates are at historically normal levels. They are not “too high.” On the other hand, home prices are too high after years of subsidy from artificially low rates and government intervention. The answer to the stagnating market is to cut prices.

Be sure to follow the Loot and Lobby podcast at Mises.org/LL

Against historians who treated the war as the death of progressive reform, Rothbard argues it was the culmination progressives had wanted all along. He traces the movement’s postmillennial pietist roots—a Protestantism bent on stamping out sin through the State—into wartime prohibition and the anti-vice crusades around the army camps, then through the New Republic collectivists who welcomed the war as the chance to remake society, and finally to the economists and statisticians, Richard Ely and Edwin Gay among them, who built the apparatus of government fact-gathering and their own careers along with it. First published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, 1989.