Government Medical “Insurance“, by Murray Rothbard, at misesca. This article, written in the 90’s, tells why prices go up when third-party payers step in between demanders and suppliers. Government decrees about health care insurance won’t stop economic forces from trying to correct the intervention by Government. Excerpt from the article: “In economic terms…..the demand curve for physicians and hospitals can rise without limit…..the suppliers can literally create their own demand through unlimited service. In order to stanch the flow of taxes or subsidies…the government and other third-party insurers have felt obliged to restrict somewhat the flow of goodies: by increasing deductibles, or by putting caps on Medicare payments….this has been met by howls of anguish from medical customers who have come to think of unlimited third-party payments as some sort of divine right, and from physicians and hospitals who charge the government with “socialistic price controls” – for trying to stem its own largesse to the healthcare industry!”
The Market And The State, by Ludwig von Mises, at misesca. Mises tells us the different outcomes when people make voluntarily exchanges in the market vs. what happens when people are forced to make exchanges because of Government intervention into the market. Excerpt from the article: “The total enslavement of all members of society is not a merely accidental attendant phenomenon of the socialist management. It is rather the essential feature of the socialist system, the very effect of any thinkable kind of socialist conduct of business. It is precisely this that the socialist authors had in mind when they stigmatized capitalism as “anarchy of production” and asked for the transfer of all authority and power to “society.” Either a man is free to live according to his own plan or he is forced to submit unconditionally to the plan of the great god state”.
Keynes: The Crackpot Economist Of ZIRP, by Gary North, at misesca. Excerpt from the article: “….the universal phenomenon of the rate of interest has been explained by Austrian School economics in terms of what Mises called time preference: the discount applied by acting men to future goods and services when compared with the same goods and services in the present…. Until you come to grips with the fact that the economics profession, central bankers, and hedge fund analysts are crackpots, you will not understand the modern economic world. When the marginal efficiency of anything is zero, it is a free good. It is not scarce. it commands no price..”
The Donald Nailed It: “We Are In A Big Fat Ugly Bubble“, at davidstockmanscontracorner.com. Excerpt from the article: “…the utterly unnatural interest rates engineered by the Fed have fueled an egregious inflation of the financial asset prices and that “some very bad things” are going to happen when the Fed’s market rigging operation is finally halted…….after 94 months on the zero bound the Fed has executed the most massive income and wealth transfer in American history. Upwards of $2.5 trillion has been extracted from the hides of main street savers and retirees over the eight year period (@ $300 billion per year). all of that and then some was gifted to the banks and Wall Street speculators….if the Congress were to enact anything remotely similar to the Fed’s savage and relentless attack on savers and wage-earners, they would be on the Receiving end of the torches and pitchforks that would descend on the Imperial City.”
The Great Debt Unwind Beneath The Surface: US Commercial Bankruptcies Soar, by Wolf Richter, at wolfstreet.com. Excerpt from the article: “Bankruptcies – and defaults, which precede them – are indicators of the “credit cycle.” The Fed’s policy of easy credit with record low-interest rates has encouraged businesses to borrow. And borrow they did. In Oct. 2008, as the prior credit bubble was beginning to implode, there were $1.59 trillion commercial and industrial loans outstanding at all US banks. Then the Financial Crisis hit, and loans outstanding plunged, many of them wiped out or restructured in bankruptcies. But then the Fed solved a credit problem with even more credit, and as of July 2016, there were $2.064 trillion of C&I loans outstanding, a 30% jump from the peak of the prior credit bubble that blew up so spectacularly…..Now the hangover is setting in from the Fed’s efforts to solve a debt problem with even more debt, to gain very little economic growth. And there is a leading indicator of big trouble already fermenting in the banks.”
What Makes Mises.org Different, by Ryan McMaken. Mises.org (About Mises) is the place to go when you want to understand economics. It is your one stop shopping place for all things related to economics. Excerpt from the article: “In a typical month, mises.org receives more than a million page views, which is pretty remarkable for a site where writers regularly talk about things like the “subjective theory of value” and “fractional reserve banking….most of our traffic continues to be people looking for real, genuine economics. they want to gain a better understanding of prices, government intervention in the market, and especially business cycles…..When people look for answers beyond the mainstream, they usually find us.”
Stumbling across mises.org in 2008 is what started me on an intellectual journey that will never end. There are moments when I think it would be better to be blissfully ignorant about economic realities, and listening Hillary’s and Trump’s talk about “the economy” are some of those moments. Their economic pronouncements drive me crazy……. Is ignorance better than insanity?
Related Article – Here Is Some Econ Homework, at austrianaddict.com.
Related Article – Your economic Homework, at austrianaddict.com.
AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT 