The current global financial crisis, described in an incomplete manner as the "subprime crisis," has shown, however, that neoclassical theories are not only descriptively false, but also completely incapable of predicting events. In contrast, the Austrian School's theories, as I will show, not only maintain their realistic approach but also have an important predictive power.

If it were possible to lift real economic growth by means of money pumping, world poverty would have been eradicated a long time ago. Real economic growth requires real savings to fund various activities that support and promote it. (Remember that money is just a medium of exchange and cannot grow anything. Money is employed to exchange goods of one wealth generator for the goods of another wealth generator.)

Suddenly, the ridiculous truth of the matter struck me: that the whole campaign was based on no political reason at all, but on an astronomical reason. We were voting simply because, since the time we last voted, the earth had gone 1461 times around the sun, or some such number, and for no other reason in the world.

In the private sector, when a firm fails, it ceases operations. The opposite happens in government. There is literally nothing a government agency could do that would make the talking heads on the Sunday shows ask, "Maybe we should just abolish this agency? Is it doing more harm than good?"

The National Socialists had radical reforms in mind. The "unalterable" 25 point 1920 program of the party proposed, among other things, "that all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished"; "the nationalization of all trusts"; "profit-sharing in large industries"; and "an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land."

Even the staunchest free-market economists have unwisely admitted that laws must be created by governmental legislation; this concession provides an inevitable gateway for State tyranny over the individual. The twin of the free-market economy is not a democratic legislature, but a proliferation of voluntary rules interpreted and applied by experts in the law.

As a long-time critic of the part-time economist and full-time political partisan Paul Krugman, I would be remiss if I did not give him at least some credit for being able to point out the obvious: Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme really is a prototype for the modern US economy.

The financial crisis of 2007–2008 was a Ponzi scheme writ large. A Ponzi scheme, or chain letter, initially succeeds but eventually collapses, just as imprudent loans may at first succeed in their objectives but eventually the laws of economics come into play and expose the futility of the whole exercise.

There can be no doubt that Greenspan, primarily through his low interest rate policy but also through the negative effects of his various bailouts, was responsible for the housing bubble and therefore the current slump. While the Community Reinvestment Act and the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aggravated the crisis, their role was only minor.

What is the state? It is the group within society that claims for itself the exclusive right to rule everyone under a special set of laws that permit it to do to others what everyone else is rightly prohibited from doing, namely aggressing against person and property. Why would any society permit such a gang to enjoy an unchallenged legal privilege? Here is where ideology comes into play.

The Union is squaring off against the South again. This time it's Detroit's union — the UAW — partnering with the auto manufacturers, politicians, and media supporters of the domestic auto industry to wage warfare against the entire South. In the midst of all the whining and begging for a bailout, the South has been declared the new enemy.

Professor Samuelson has, in this case, misinterpreted an insufficiently small set of data to arrive at conclusions that square only with his own personal value judgments. He claims that his intellectual opponents (F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman) give bad advice when they promote laissez-faire.

After you read the dedication of Hamilton's Curse, you know that the book is going to be good: "Dedicated to the memory of Professor Murray N. Rothbard, a brilliant scholar and tireless defender of the free society." DiLorenzo proves to be an outstanding practitioner of a Rothbardian brand of history, a fact that should come as no surprise to readers of his earlier books.

As 2008 draws to a close, a new president will be inaugurated in a few short weeks. The outgoing president claims that he must abandon free-market principles in order to save it. Somehow, this has translated itself into a multibillion-dollar bailout for politically favored carmakers. Should the current turmoil cause us to abandon hope?

The opinions of economists are not random. They can be classified into schools of thought, and to schools within schools. It's too bad that the radio and television announcers can't just say this before the economist ever opens his mouth.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute has reprinted the four novels written by Garet Garrett (1878–1954), one of America's leading financial journalists and a libertarian. Garrett, who for unknown reasons had renamed himself so that both parts sounded alike, was a writer of distinctive ideas and a forcefully distinctive style. I'm an admirer of Garrett, and have long wanted his work to be easier to obtain.

Unwilling to shortchange his students or to pay for the copies himself, the visionary teacher found an alternative: he began to sell advertisements on his test papers. According to USA Today, he charged $10 per ad on quizzes, $20 per ad on chapter tests, and $30 per ad on semester finals. Within a few days he had over 75 email requests for ads! Farber has already generated $350 in ad revenue.

As I consider books that had the greatest impact on me, Hoppe's Economics and Ethics of Private Property is near that top of the list. Why? Because Hoppe places property in the center of ethics. He builds a system of ethics that is the basis for judging action. To that end, I try to keep Hoppe in mind when confronted by apparent ethical challenges, such as a children's holiday program in the inner city.

Many Christians are seriously annoyed at the way the holiday season has changed. If you are among them, you are probably already annoyed at this article, because I didn't say Christmas season. That a shift in the culture has taken place is beyond doubt. But the idea that there is some war going on is completely nuts. Commerce is bombing us with x-treme Christmas starting the day after Halloween!

The Fed has not actually stumbled into either a Keynesian or Krugman-type liquidity trap. It has actually created an "inflation trap," whereby today's low interest rates have set us on a course of a future inflationary credit boom, which will be followed by either higher interest rates or hyperinflation and a subsequent crisis.