America’s Subprime-acy
John Subprime Smith, unemployed worker of Zzyzx, California (real city), in a quick glance assesses he’s qualified for his local bank’s exclusive mortgage terms. Five years after, in the summer of 2007, John realizes he can no longer pay his mortgage rates, bank catches on its lack of liquidity, and the Fed realizes its moral duty to provide liquidity… Ten years earlier, Joe ”the Overoptimistic” Doe also had a small credit from the same bank and placed it in Mirage.dot.com.Inc. stock. Highly over-valued, the stock was to go bust, shaking the bank and bringing in the Fed with liquidity. The bank was saved and was generously waiting for… Mr. Smith.
Sustainable (under)development…or how to warm ourselves without lighting a fire!
At over 40 Celsius, the human body goes haywire. At 40 in the soup, chez Alain Ducasse, Athenee Plaza in Paris, the bill goes above the minimum monthly wage in Romania. At 40 inside, sales in conditioned air and otitis cures, go up. At 40 outside, brewers take advantage of the drought-ruined farmers’ subsidy in spite of weather girls’ charms. All while the Government plans for less than 40.
A completed project:
Human Action
Murray Rothbard has called Ludwig von Mises' Human Action "the Economic Bible of civilized man", and we confidently recommend it as vol. 1 of the discerning social scientists' Philokalia. So harmoniously sound is the Misesian edifice, that it is hard not to see in it (part of) the kataphatic dimension of a more complex spiritual whole. It will be most profitably read by those who can identify the Misesian spirit in every part of it, and place it above Mises' letter, in the time-honored tradition of his hard-core followers.
The first three parts explore the meaning of the methodological a priori and its place in the social sciences, while developing fundamental praxeology, from a first analysis of the category of action to the general principles of social cooperation and the role of calculative action. No understanding of catallactics, or economics proper, with price theory centered on the nature and possibility of economic calculation, is possible without a thorough grasp of these crucial introductory chapters.
One is swiftly lead to the conclusion that, in basic epistemology, empiricism quite literally kills, while rationalism leads to life. However, to paraphrase Mises, a sound (rationalist) approach to law & economics, and the interpretation of human events, requires caution and subtlety on every level, and the uncritical and superficial minds have again and again been led astray by the careless confusion of the epistemologically different methods implied.
We wish to thank Mrs. Bettina Bien Greaves, without whom this translation could not have been e-published on MisesRomania.org.
The Austrian view on Entrepreneurship and Equilibrium
In her PhD thesis, Diana Costea presents the treatment of entrepreneurship in the Austrian economic thought and gives a critical and comparative analysis, from this point of view, of the mainstream treatment of monopoly theory, equilibrium, economic calculation and the theory of the firm.
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