From http://mises.org:

The events taking place in the financial market offer an illustration of the soundness of the Austrian theory of money, banking, and credit cycles, and Mises.org is your source not only for analysis of these events but also the economic theory that helps explain what is happening and what to do about it. There are many thousands of articles available, and also the full text of thousands of books as well as journal articles. It is impossible to draw attention to the full range of literature one can use to understand the crisis.

However, below we offer a brief look into the topics most discussed in these times, with extended treatments of each in the sidebar. Mises.org also offers both a blog and a community forum for reading and discussing them all.

It’s never been more important to spread a sound view of money and banking, not only as a protection against the fallacies of “stabilization” and “reflation” but also as way to see what kind of reforms are essential now.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

• Freddie Mac: A Mercantilist Enterprise, by Paul Cleveland, March 14, 2005
• Fannie Mae: Another New Deal Monstrosity, by Karen De Coster, July 2, 2007
• How Fannie and Freddie Made Me a Grumpy Economist, by Christopher Westley, July 21, 2008
• Who Made the Fannie and Freddie Threat? By Frank Shostak, March 5, 2004
• Are Fannie and Freddie Too Big to Fail? By Frank Shostak, September 17, 2008
• Fannie Mae Distorts Markets, by Robert Blumen, June 17, 2002

The Housing Bubble

• The Real Cost of a Full Bailout, by Don Rich, August 22, 2008
• The Subprime Mortgage “Crisis” Will Fix Itself, by Steve Berger, May 30, 2007
• Did the Fed Cause the Housing Bubble? By Robert Murphy, April 14, 2008
• The Mortgage Market Mess, by Christopher Westley, May 17, 2007
• Housing Bubble: Myth or Reality? By Frank Shostak, March 4, 2003

Inflationary Finance

• What’s Behind the Financial Market Crisis? by Antony Mueller, September 18, 2008
• Our Financial House of Cards, by George Reisman, March 25, 2008
• Will Central Bankers Become Central Planners? by Robert Blumen, July 31, 2008
• Inflation is a Policy that Cannot Last, by Thorsten Polleit, March 14, 2008
• The Widening Safety Net, by Christopher Mayer, March 19, 2004
• The Fed’s New Tricks Are Creating Disaster, Frank Shostak, March 18, 2008
• The Fed’s War on the Middle Class, by Mark Thornton, June 4, 2008.

Community Reinvestment Act

• The CRA Scam and its Defenders, by Thomas DiLorenzo, April 30, 2008
• Regulatory Sneak Attack, by Thomas DiLorenzo, September 16, 1999

Short Selling

• Short-Sale Restrictions Are an Exercise in Naked Power, by Robert Murphy, August 11, 2008
• The Social Function of Futures Markets, Robert Murphy, November 29, 2006
• Don’t Sell Short Selling Short, April 6, 2007

The Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle

• The Idiocy of Wall Street, by Don Rich, September 24, 2008
• The Fed is Culpable, by Hans F. Sennholz, November 11, 2002
• Skyscrapers and Business Cycles, by Mark Thornton, August 23, 2008
• Economic Outlook 2008: Darkening Clouds, Dominick Armentano, January 2, 2008
• Business Cycle Primer, Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. February 8, 2001
• Economics Depressions: Their Cause and Cure, by Murray Rothbard

Who Predicted This?

• The Financial Apocalyptics are Back, Robert Blumen
• Sowing the Seeds of the Next Crisis, Thorsten Polleit, April 25, 2006
• Credit Crisis: Precursor of Great Inflation, by Thorsten Polleit, February 7, 2008
• Mr. Bailout, by Anton Mueller, September 30, 2004
• America’s Unsustainable Boom, by Stefan Karlsson, November 8, 2004
• Who Predicted the Bubble? Who Predicted the Crash? By Mark Thornton, July 14, 2003

What To Do

• Don’t Bail Them Out, by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., September 10, 2008
• How to Avoid Another Depression, by Mark Thornton, September 10, 2008
• Taking Money Back, By Murray N. Rothbard, June 14, 2008
• Beware the Alchemists, by Ludwig von Mises, February 3, 2006
• Reflation in American History, by H.A. Scott Trask, October 31, 2003
• Money and Freedom, by Joseph Salerno, February 2, 2002
• The Case for a Genuine Gold Dollar, by Murray Rothbard

Books to Distribute

• The Theory of Money and Credit, by Ludwig von Mises
• America’s Great Depression, by Murray Rothbard
• The Mystery of Banking, by Murray Rothbard
• Prices and Production, by F.A. Hayek
• Causes of the Economic Crisis, by Ludwig von Mises
• Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays, Ludwig von Mises et al.
• Understanding the Dollar Crisis, by Percy Greaves
• The Case Against the Fed, by Murray Rothbard
• Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, by Jesus Huerta de Soto
• History of American Currency, by William Graham Sumner
• Banking and the Business Cycle, by C.A. Phillips
• Fiat Money Inflation in France, by Andrew Dickson White

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

The Most Idiotic Governor in America?

Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo at September 23, 2008 06:33 PM

I know I’ll receive many emails from people claiming that the governor of their state deserves the title of “Most Idiotic Governor,” but for now I’d like to nominate Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. In a desperate attempt to appear relevant to the presidential race (he was a Hillary supporter) he announced over the local airwaves today that the Bush administration, which has spent more domestically than LBJ did, and which initiated an unnecessary, non-defensive war that has lasted longer than World War II, should be condemned as a bunch of “no government, or minimal government, ideologues.”

Case closed.

Politicians say the darnedest things.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

Starting next year, there will be four new pennies to collect, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

The obverse (or heads) part of the coin will stay the same, showing the 16th president facing to the right.

But the reverse (tails) part of the coin will show different times in the life of Lincoln, who is widely considered to be one of the country’s greatest leaders for freeing the slaves and saving the Union during the Civil War.

The designs for the new pennies were shown for the first time yesterday near the Lincoln Memorial.

The first new penny will be available Feb. 12, Lincoln’s 200th birthday. It will show a log cabin to honor his birth and childhood in Kentucky.

The others will show his life as a young man in Indiana, his professional life in Illinois and his presidential years in Washington (when the U.S. Capitol was being built).

The other side of the penny will continue to show the likeness of Lincoln designed by Victor David Brennan. It was introduced on the Lincoln penny 100 years ago.

A Lincoln commemorative silver dollar also will be issued next year.

Abraham Lincoln did not really free the slaves. The 13th Amendment did. The Emancipation Proclamation said “all persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part of the State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Only those slaves captured by the North by that point were set free. Maryland and Delaware were both slave states and not on of the supposed rebel states. While not recognized by any other government the Confederate States of America was a separate nation with it’s own government defined by their own (though heavily borrowed from the USA) constitution. Therefore from their perspective the Emancipation Proclamation meant as much as if it had come from England. Lincoln also said this of the Corwin Amendment, “[H]olding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.” which read:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

As for saving the Union… a highly questionable action. Even if ruled unconstitutional there is plenty of evidence that such a claim is incorrect from a legal standpoint. For example: When ratifying the new constitution, Virginia (1788), New York (1788), and Rhode Island (1790) included clauses indicating they were free to leave the new federal government confederation should it become oppressive. It seems obvious that they would not have joined if they believed it was a one way trip. From a moral standpoint its reprehensible. The Declaration of Independence clearly says:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Lincoln was in no way a great leader but a statist who put his beliefs in keeping together a union of people who did not wish to be under the same government umbrella above the lives of over 600,000 individuals.

For more information read Thomas DiLorenzo’s books Lincoln Unmasked and The Real Lincoln. Many complain his views are one sided but given the works written in excess of Lincoln’s greatness I think that’s excusable. You can also find a decent interview with DiLorenzo on CSPAN’s Q&A at Google video.

… or Secession Day or antiauthoritarian day or …

A few articles to check out while waiting for the hotdogs and burgers to cook.

A Fresh Look at Holidays - Butler Shaffer

Just how far we have contorted our thinking about “independence day” is reflected in most people’s thinking about fireworks. Like private gun-ownership, our personal use of fireworks represents too much power in the hands of individuals. And so, we confine ourselves to the absurdity of having the state celebrate our liberty and independence for us!

July 4th In Bizarro World - Manuel Lora

What follows are just a few of the July 4th lies and errors that we are supposed to blindly accept:

• The military is glorious, its heroes heroic, and our support is patriotic
• Freedom is about authority
• The police keep us safe and have a duty to protect us
• We are better off now than when the war on drugs started decades ago
• Continually increasing prices is a product of the market and thus the central bank must control credit and the money supply
• With proper reform, government can become efficient, especially if we elect the right leaders
• The Constitution gives people rights
• The government has been formed by the consent of the governed
• Without the state regulating/subsidizing/taxing/prohibiting activity or industry X, said industry or activity would be produced in quantities and/or qualities that are too high or too low; or would run rampant, cartelize and monopolize the market; or would not survive in a predatory competitive environment
• The more politically democratic things are, the better for everyone
• No matter what the cost to the public, protecting the children/our veterans/our senior citizens/our teachers is always the number one priority
• The free movement of goods and people destroys jobs and threatens our standard of living
• Businesses have no incentives to keep their customers safe; licenses ensure fair practices
• The law may occasionally be wrong, but it should nonetheless be followed always
• We must forever give up essential liberties to guarantee safety: it’s for your own good

Happy Secession Day! - Thomas DiLorenzo

That’s what Thomas Jefferson would be celebrating today. Unlike so many Americans, he would not be celebrating the American empire, with its “unitary executive,” swarms of tax-collecting bureaucrats, its militarization of society, protectionism, economic fascism, suspension of habeas corpus, domestic spying, etc., etc. The Hamiltonian republic that we now live under, which is celebrated by the liberal/left and neocons alike, is the opposite of Jefferson’s dream of an “empire of liberty.”

And of course there is the Decleration of Independence. Agreed upon on July 2nd and officially recognized on the 4th.

I’d imagine if you watch mises.org or lewrockwell.com today you’ll get plenty of other articles on the topic of freedom, secession, etc.

http://odeo.com/show/19322633/view

MP3

On Memorial Day, 2008, author and radio host Gardner Goldsmith decided to take a different tack. He delved into the fallacies underlying many American beliefs about the Civil War and WWII

Check it out!

And look for Gardner’s new book, “Live Free or Die” at amazon.com!

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/…

Thomas DiLorenzo spoke about his interests in economics and Abraham Lincoln, and his investigations into the two areas through his books, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (Prima Lifestyles, 2002); and Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe (Crown Forum, 2006). He spoke about his research and methods, as well as many of the results he uncovered during the research. Professor DiLorenzo not only criticizes President Lincoln’s handling of the Civil War, he also criticizes current day historians who, he says, belong to the “church of Lincoln.” Those include James McPherson, Harold Holzer, Harry Jaffa, Eric Foner, and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Professor DiLorenzo also contends that academic historians critical of Lincoln have difficulties getting university level jobs.

An hour long but pretty good.