Tag: the free market

What the 4th of July Should Be

I need to preface this with a confession, taken from my latest Facebook status. “I’m afraid I’m a hopeless introvert.” It is true. Probably part of my aversion to 4th of July parades, county fairs, and all those fun American things is that I just don’t like people much. I mean, there are particular people I like, and some I like very much, but I find the general population to be so insipid, close-minded, self-centered, and utterly boring that I don’t really care much for being around people. Under certain circumstances, I enjoy watching people, but I find it hard…

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The Reality of the Market

I really enjoy my job, for several reasons. One reason is that my company is the perfect real-life example of many concepts I learned in economics. I have to get my boss credit, he is sometimes a very quotable person and says things just like I’ve heard in my econ books…except he really is an entrepreneur who is dealing with very real customers (believe me…I have to talk to them every day…). First example illustrates consumer sovereignty. He said, “A lot of people think that business-owners run their company. That’s not true. The customer runs the business. The customers decide…

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Lines of Phreedom

Thanks to a friend, I stumbled upon this website, Lines of Phreedom, last week and it was very encouraging. Encouraging because it means I’m not the only young person who sees the importance of literature in introducing people to liberty. From the About page, Guns will put you in a position of power for a limited time, and rhetoric will get you fame for a while, but what is written will last forever. I’m probably a bit biased because Lines of Phreedom is helping to promote Path of Grass, but even before the webmaster, K.J. Herr, kindly did so, I…

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What the Market Requires

I’m actually getting to the point where I enjoy my job. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never not liked it, and from Day One I’ve appreciated the challenge it has been. But there were several weeks where I’d come home every day exhausted and wondering when the chaos and madness would end. And I’m happy to say it is improving. There’s still a very long way to go, but I feel better about what I do. I worked full time for a couple weeks in order to straighten things out. I’ve actually gotten to the point where I can do…

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For Mises Students, Part 2

Israel brought up some good questions related to my first post, so I thought I’d address those here. The first thing, “aren’t there Youtube videos that summarize these required readings and can’t we get Greek history from movies like Troy?” I’m sure there are Youtube videos that explain some of what these works cover, but probably not systematically. The youtube might be on “Socialism vs. Capitalism” and might cover some of the points that Mises makes in his books, but I doubt that there are Youtube videos made as summaries of these works. I have an idea on this, however,…

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For Mises U Students

The Mises Institute strongly encourages all students attending Mises U to be familiar with the Required Readings found here. Whether I go to Mises U or not (still hoping it will work out!) I will try do the readings. Last year I wrote out a schedule for getting through all the books, and I thought I would post my updated version for the students I know who wondering how to tackle it. Anyone else is welcome to read through all this too. 🙂 Theoretically I would start the reading in March. However…that didn’t happen this year. But my schedule starts…

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The Free Market

I’m posting the resources from  a recent webinar as a blog post to give readers better access to the info. Slides are available here. Video from the webinar can be viewed here. Here’s a list of the resources and links mentioned in the webinar – Chaos Theory by Bob Murphy – Privatization of Roads and Highways by Walter Block – The Enterprise of Law by Bruce Benson – Walter Block Interview on Road Privatization, http://mises.org/daily/3431 –  A Future of Private Roads and Highways by Walter Block, http://mises.org/daily/3416 – This video is a study on a formerly-controlled intersection in England that now has…

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A Mises Weekend, Part 2

So we finally got a table at the Berghoff and looked at the menu. I wasn’t terribly hungry, so we decided to get one appetizer, one main dish, and maybe something on the side, and we’d just split it. My dad wasn’t really interested in the German food, so we went with the seafood. I ordered a smoked salmon appetizer, he ordered stuffed sole, and we got potato pancakes on the side. When the plates arrived, my smoked salmon was served on a small wooden cutting board with pieces of salmon on a bed of lettuce and onions. My first thought…

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Coming Soon: Path of Grass

While progress was slightly delayed, I’m on track to get Path of Grass published in the next month or two. Actually, it might be more like two or three months, just because I have to be patient and wait for other people who can’t devote every waking moment to preparing my book for publication. Why is this exciting and why should you be excited about Path of Grass? As a friend of mine at a recent Mises Circle said, we’re not going to achieve more liberty by voting for “better” rulers. Look at the “freedom loving” Tea Party candidates who…

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A Mises Weekend, Part 1

On April 8th and 9th my dad and I went into Chicago for the Mises Institute’s Highschool Seminar and their Saturday Mises Circle. With my new job these events came up really quickly and I wasn’t thinking about it until that week. Friday was extremely icky…rainy and cold, and of course windy. I didn’t get to drive all the way to the train station which was disappointing, but after driving a little in the rain/dark I was relieved to have my dad take over. He was worried about getting to our train on time (and not being run over by…

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