Category Archives: Transhuman News

Ron Paul Bitcoin Could Destroy The Dollar
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By: TimesEconomy

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Ron Paul Bitcoin Could Destroy The Dollar - Video

Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute, recently spoke with The Free Market about his introduction to the Austrian School and his work with Ron Paul.

Mises Institute: How did you become interested in Austrian economics?

Jeff Deist: My journey with Austrian economics and the Mises Institute began in 1992. I was fortunate to have a good friend, Joe Becker, studying in the graduate economics program at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Joe was a burgeoning Austrian scholar, and of course had chosen the program strictly because Murray Rothbard was on the faculty. At the time a small group of Austro-libertarian students had assembled in Las Vegas to study under Murray. With the addition of Hans Hoppe, UNLV clearly had become the top economics program in the US for graduate students interested in Austrian training. I was able to attend a few of Murrays course lectures, which not surprisingly (to those familiar with his lifestyle) were held in the evening! Needless to say the lectures were fast-paced and filled with references beyond the mainstream, giving only a hint of Murrays vast range of knowledge. Encouraged by Joe and his excitement for Rothbards teaching, I decided to explore further.

At the time I was already a committed libertarian, but lacked any real intellectual framework to integrate free market economics with ethics, philosophy, law, and political liberty.

Remember that much of what passed for free-market or libertarian thought at the time remained mired in 1980s Reaganite clichs. Supply-side economics was still the focus of the Right, with many otherwise sensible people talking about the Laffer Curve and maximizing tax revenue! Quasi-utilitarian arguments flourished in the economics mainstream, ceding the intellectual high ground in favor of arguments that free markets merely worked better. Law and economics theories were trendy, with strict liability tort models offered as the supposed remedy to judicial overreach and externalities. Tax cuts and enterprise zones typified the weak-tea fiscal policy ideas coming from the political class, even as Clinton outfoxed the elder Bush by co-opting limited government rhetoric. Of course both Alan Greenspan and the Fed were wildly popular across the political spectrum, with some pundits promising not only an end to poverty (through monetary policy) but an end to history itself. Democracy, so we were told, had triumphed.

Against this backdrop Austrian economics opened up a whole new world for me. It became clear that antipathy toward government and support for free markets was not enough: it was necessary to understand and explain the harm caused by all kinds of government intervention in economic terms, which is to say, human terms. Reading breezy libertarian books and articles could never substitute for more rigorous academic self-study.

MI: Describe how your interest in Austrian economics evolved.

JD: Like so many before me, I began reading the great works of Mises, Hayek, and Hazlitt. These works demolished, point by point, the case for communism and socialism, while warning against the abandonment of the old liberal order. They also effectively predicted the failure of social democracy models that had replaced monarchies in Europe and constitutionalism in America. Once one understood and accepted Austrian teaching regarding the fundamental choice between laissez-faire and statism, the conclusion became clear: there was no third way.

Traditional Austrian explanations of capital, interest, and time preference refuted the tired yet sometimes subtle fallacies and class arguments underpinning not only Marx and Keynes, but even most neoclassical schools. The subjective theory of value showed that consumers, not intrinsic material or labor components, determined value. Austrian business cycle theory explained not only particular booms and busts (such as the S&L bust), but also the broader need for commodity money and the inherently destructive effects of central banks. Meanwhile, Austrian methodology taught that markets are not mysterious, anonymous, or inhuman: on the contrary, they simply reflect human action, however imperfect, in economic terms.

Perhaps most importantly, the Austrian School helped me understand the impossibility of socialism as an economic system. By demonstrating the critical need for price signals and profit/loss feedback among business owners, Austrians demolished the entire range of modern arguments for state economic planning.

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A Conversation With Jeff Deist About the Austrian School

Ron Paul Federal Reserve, Economic Financial Crisis
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Ron Paul Federal Reserve, Economic Financial Crisis - Video

DALLAS Its 7 a.m. on a Saturday, Rand Paul is exhausted and airport security has just confiscated his morning joe.

The TSA took away my coffee, the libertarian-leaning senator, Houston-bound for a day of events with GOP activists, complains of the federal agency hes proposed abolishing. I offered to drink it to show it wasnt a bomb.

The Kentucky Republican has many more sleep-deprived moments in store as he prepares for a near-certain 2016 presidential bid. On an early February political swing through his native Texas, where Paul was joined by a POLITICO reporter, the contradictions and challenges that would define such a run were on vivid display as was Pauls belief that his blend of libertarian-infused conservatism could forge an entirely new path to the White House.

(QUIZ: Do you know Rand Paul?)

In an extensive in-flight interview, the first-term senator outlined his vision for a more inclusive GOP only to meet a frosty response hours later when he spoke favorably about immigration to a roomful of people enamored of the tea partys luminary of the moment, Sen. Ted Cruz.

Paul didnt talk much during the trip about his roots as the son of an ex-congressman and libertarian folk hero. But Texans at every turn brought up his father, the highly polarizing former Rep. Ron Paul, from whom Rand Paul knows he must stake out a separate identity to have any shot at the GOP nomination.

And as Paul argued that the GOP needs a 2016 standard-bearer with broader appeal than its recent nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain, he did not evince Barack Obamas ability to move a crowd, George W. Bushs everyman relatability or Bill Clintons love of the game.

At the same time, Paul made clear his ambition to remake the Republican Party by drawing support from constituencies that have voted reliably Democratic. Just as Ronald Reagan drew working-class Democrats into the GOP fold and Bill Clinton pulled his party to the political center, Paul has a vision of that magnitude in mind for his party.

(PHOTOS: Rand Pauls career)

The countrys a mess, and I think there needs to be a program that Republicans put forward, and also there needs to be a messenger who can actually win, Paul said, in perhaps his most overt remarks to date about what a presidential bid would look like. And Im concerned that if we put forward the same sort of candidate again, that we wont be successful.

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Rand Paul's Republican revolution