Author: Gary North

I have been writing recently about my proposed Keynes project. I have pointed out that no young economist has taken the bait. Nobody wants to devote a lifetime to refute the central economist of the 20th century. Murray Rothbard would have done a devastating job on Keynes, but he died before he got to the 20th century. He never wrote the third volume of his monumental history of economic thought. If he had, this would have saved us a great deal of time. I am a debater. I know how to debate in a formal debate, and I know how … Continue reading →

The heart of revisionist history is this: the textbook version of the story is wrong. It may be wrong for simply technical reasons. Maybe certain documents have been suppressed, or lost, or ignored. Maybe the event is far more complex than the textbooks indicate. But in some matters, especially those regarding banking, war, and government spending, the textbook story has been deliberately written by court historians. The court historians have deliberately suppressed information, because the information points to the conspiratorial origins of the event. It is crucial for establishment historians to be able to dismiss such investigations as conspiracy history, … Continue reading →

Union members for decades called non-union strike-breakers “scabs.” They used violence against them. That was because they were thugs. In the contest between the scabs and the thugs, the consumers’ best interests were always upheld by the scabs. Soon, consumers will be facing the negative effects of a closing of the ports of California. A strike is looming. The longshoremen will walk off the job. They could be replaced by robots. Sometime over the next 20 years, this will happen. Why are there no robots working as longshoremen? Because the National Labor Relations Board won’t let them replace the International … Continue reading →

Gold is a barbarous relic, Keynes famously said. Keynesian economists repeat this . . . until they become central bankers. Then, it’s a different story. Governments added 477.2 metric tons to their reserves [in 2014], the second-biggest increase in 50 years and 17 percent more than a year earlier, the World Gold Council said in a report Thursday. . . . . Central banks have added to gold reserves for the past five years, a reversal from two decades of selling since the late 1980s. Purchases will be at least 400 tons this year, according to estimates from the London-based … Continue reading →

Experts have no cure for CFS. But they recommend a new acronym: SEID. It stands for systemic exertion intolerance disease. It would be a lot better if the experts acknowledged the cure. There is a cure. It would be best if the Food and Drug Administration did not shut down anyone who is found offering this cure. This is what the FDA does. I speak from experience. My wife had this debilitating disease in 1987 and 1988. It left only after the “black box” treatment. It took three days: 8 hours a day of being hooked up to a machine. … Continue reading →

Eight years ago this week, we held my son’s funeral. He was 24. I have written about his death. He had an undiagnosed disease or condition. (If you or anyone you know has these symptoms, take whatever action is necessary. The outcome of doing nothing is fatal.) The local hospital had given him full tests, and had given him a clean bill of health. The hospital was wrong. A few months earlier, he had suffered a seizure. He was in the library. Somebody called an emergency ambulance, and the ambulance staff loaded him onto a gurney, put him in the … Continue reading →

News from Pew Research. The share of adults who live in middle-income households has eroded over time, from 61% in 1970 to 51% in 2013. Although the share is unchanged in recent years – it was the same in 2010 – the erosion over the last four decades has been sure and steady, through economic ups and downs. If past trends continue to hold, there is little reason to believe the recovery from the Great Recession will eventually lead to a rebound in the share of adults in middle-income households. The shrinking in the middle of the income distribution is … Continue reading →

Methadone is a legal drug that is taken by former heroin addicts. It eliminates the “rush” that heroin offers, but it also eliminates withdrawal symptoms. It lets heroin addicts escape the need to buy the expensive illegal drug. Methadone is for heroin addicts who just cannot bring themselves to go cold turkey from an addictive drug that distorts their perception. That is what a 401(k) retirement plan is for middle-class workers. Most workers have no retirement program other than Social Security. About 55% of American workers are eligible for a 401(k) plan, but only about 38% participate. This, according to … Continue reading →

Ludwig von Mises is one of my heroes. He abided by a fundamental principle in life: “Never give an inch.” It was often said by Chicago School economists and other non-Austrian economists that Mises was just too hard core. He was just too unbending. For an example of this criticism, watch this brief video, which is a segment from the PBS series, The Commanding Heights. The key comes at 1:30: an interview with Milton Friedman. Friedman dismisses Mises for standing firm. But on the issue at hand — the welfare state — he was right. At the age of 19, … Continue reading →

In my article on “Civilization and the Faculty Lounge,” I told the story of how New York University’s economics department treated Mises with contempt. The economics department of the University of Chicago did the same with F. A. Hayek, a soft-core version of Mises. NYU was a third-tier school. Mises was a greater economist than Hayek. The disparity today is obvious. The idea that the long-forgotten drones at NYU thought of Mises as a dinosaur is indicative of just how third-tier NYU was. Mises died in October 1973. In the late spring of 1974, a week-long meeting was held at … Continue reading →

What began as an investigation ignited by an anonymous report turned into a nightmare for an Arkansas homeschooling couple and seven of their children last week – and it’s not over yet. Arkansas sheriff’s deputies in Garland County have “stolen” seven homeschoolers from their parents in a home raid spurred by an anonymous caller who told authorities the family’s house contained a “poisonous substance” — which turned out to be a mineral supplement/water purifier that isn’t FDA-approved. It’s been more than a week since the officers and the Department of Human Services (DHS) seized the seven homeschoolers. They remain in … Continue reading →

I begin with my favorite closing dialogue in the history of the movies. It is from The Professionals (1966). Ralph Bellamy hires four adventurers to bring back his kidnapped wife. A Mexican revolutionary has kidnapped her. But it turns out that she went with him willingly. So, they escort her from her husband’s ranch at the end of the movie. This led to the following exchange: This leads me to the issue at hand: the alliance. There is an international alliance between the bastard children of the welfare state and the self-made bastards who designed the welfare state and then sold … Continue reading →

On March 29, 2014, ten 3D printed houses, each measuring 200 square meters, appeared in Shanghai, China. The buildings were created entirely out of concrete using a gigantic 3D printer, and each costs only 30,000 RMB ($4,800). Today, just ten months after the initial project, the company behind these 3D printed buildings, Shanghai WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co, made a new announcement that will take 3D printed buildings to a whole new level: they have built the highest 3D printed building, a 5-storey residential house and the world’s first 3D printed villa. The villa measures 1,100 square meters and even … Continue reading →

The Left-wing Oxfam group has issued a report saying that the world’s wealthiest 1% will soon own 50% of the world’s wealth. This press release has been nicely timed to match the meeting at Davos, Switzerland of the world’s wealthiest people. Oxfam pulled the same PR stunt last year at this time. It worked. So, they have done it again. It’s time for a lesson in ancient economic history. (It will also be time again in a year.) You have heard of Pareto’s law, I assume. It’s the 20-80 rule. About 20% of the members of any group provide about … Continue reading →