The House That Uncle Sam Built

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Peter Boettke. Peter is a professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center & Professor of Economics at George Mason University.

His topic for us will be:

"The House That Uncle Sam Built"

When:
February 16th
Reception begins at 6pm
Speaker at 7pm

Where:
The Harbor Club
35 Prioleau Street
Charleston, SC

Please RSVP by emailing us here: bastiatsociety@gmail.com


About Dr. Peter Boettke:

Peter J. Boettke is the Deputy Director of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy, a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, and a professor in the economics department at George Mason University. Boettke was born and raised in New Jersey. He received his BA in economics from Grove City College and his PhD in economics from George Mason University. Before joining the faculty at George Mason University in 1998, he held faculty positions at Oakland University, Manhattan College and New York University. In addition, Boettke was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University during the 1992-1993 academic year. He has been a visiting professor or scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, the Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems in Jena, Germany, the Stockholm School of Economics, Central European University in Prague and Charles University in Prague.

In 1998, Boettke assumed the editorship of the Review of Austrian Economics (Kluwer Academic Publishers). The Review of Austrian Economics was founded by late Murray Rothbard in mid-1980s to promote research and the further development of the Austrian School of Economics. Prior to assuming that editorship, Boettke was the editor of Advances in Austrian Economics. Since the mid-1990s, Boettke has also been the Director of the Advanced Summer Seminar in Austrian Economics, a post he took over from Israel Kirzner. Boettke is a former President of the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics.

Boettke is currently involved with the Global Prosperity Initiative, which is part of the Social Change Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. GPI was founded with the purpose of encouraging an analytical narrative approach to the institutional analysis of development and transition studies. This research seeks to combine an ethnographic style of field research with the analytical structure of economic reasoning to explore the fundamental questions of why some nations are rich and others are poor, and the broad implications of globalization for the liberation of humanity from poverty.

Fed Up Yet?

From: Antony P. Mueller for Mises Daily

In persistent denial that it was ample liquidity in the first place that caused the present dire economic situation, the head of the Fed holds the view that "too little inflation" has been the true threat all along. Fear of deflation is Ben Bernanke's recurrent nightmare. In fact, his deflation worries form the basis of the so-called Bernanke doctrine, which says that the cure is monetary expansion and, consequently, holding interest rates as low as possible.

Read the entire article here.

Our Big Fat Greek Future

From CNN.com

The issues leading up to the government financial crisis in Greece:

• Years of unrestrained spending
• Cheap lending
  
• Failure to implement financial reforms
• Huge national debt

See the story here

Do these symptoms sound familiar? They should. For instance, just last week Congress and President Obama raised our national debt ceiling to $14,300,000,000,000. Our forcasted GDP for 2010 is about the same (±$14.5 trillion). Not since WWII has our national debt even come close to reaching our annual GDP. Pretty scary since we won't have the luxury of an EU bailout.

Angry Voters

From the Economist article:
The Tea-Party Convention: Scenes from a Counter Revolution

Monopolies and Competition

Milton Friedman on K-12 Education

Tea Anyone?

There has been much ado this week regarding the Tea Party convention being held in Nashville, TN. Most pundits now agree that the Tea Party movement is a legitimate force; however, according to most media outlets, the organizers are having a hard time "getting their act together" and "forming a solid platform" with a "positive message." If that is the measure of a successful movement, then the GOP and the Democratic National Party both have a long way to go. What the pundits must understand is that the Tea Party movement has no formal leadership, is not trying to form a "solid platform," and is not attempting to provide a "positive message." This is a grass-roots movement which wants what Bostonian Samuel Adams did in 1773 - freedom from an oppressive and unresponsive government. This ideal is message enough, and does not require a platform.

NPR has a good article on the Tea Party convention and what they hope to accomplish.

Listen to it here.

Free Trade and the Steel Industry, 1978

Dr. Milton Friedman gives a concise and lucid argument for international free trade at Utah State University in 1978.

Singapore: A Testament to Free Trade

The Discovery Channel is currently showing the "History of Singapore" on their HD Theater network. Among other things, the documentary shows how powerful freedom and free trade can be. Singapore, a small island (275 sq. miles) with no natural resources, has grown to become the 16th largest trading country in the world and 9th richest country in the world (GDP/capita).

If you can not catch in on HD Theater, you may watch the video online below.

Part One


Part Two


Part Three


Part Four


Part Five

Wise and Correct Taxation

“The wise and correct course to follow in taxation is not to destroy those who have already secured success, but to create conditions under which everyone will have a better chance to be successful.”

Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States, 1923-1929