Life at the Mises Institute. Everyone here is going nuts here because of this little book, which came in today. Yes, we were distributing it from our warehouse before we saw it in real life. It is just spectacular. The size is great. Small enough to put in your back pocket. The two essays are thrilling: 1) shut down the central bank and privatize money, 2) no government can manage any economy anywhere ever. Two of his best of a lifetime. It is a warm and wonderful format, very accessible. The cover art is drop-dead gorgeous. A real treasure in every way. We need to figure out how to get this little thing in the hands of every investor, writer, banker, professional–citizen!–in this country.
A funny thing about this book. You hold it and read and feel the burning desire to have about 100 copies to hand out. You are going to be wild for this. We are working on some sort of means of mass distribution. Perhaps you can help. It is only $5.
{ 17 comments }
Darn! I just ordered so I will have to begin building another shopping cart. This sounds like a great tool.
“Economics in One Lesson” has served well in that capacity for a long time.
January 20, 2009
Bailout Is A Classic ‘Broken Window Fallacy’
Sharing The Pain Plan of the Bailout
Ordinary Taxpayers 100%, Banks 0%, Congress 0%, State Legislatures 0%, Bernanke 0%, Fed Governors 0%, Fannie Mae Bondholders 0%, Freddie Mac Bondholders 0%, FDIC executives 0%, SEC 0%
Pain? What about pane, like window pane?
The imperialism of the unConstitutional coup breaks the window pane and then the economically illterate Congress (made up of ego-driven politicians) take the advice of their ego-driven interventionist advisors to fix the window pane. They say “Look, it’s good that the window pane was broken because now we can put to work the glazier. Then, just think of the glazier spending that money and then the multiplier effect in the economy!”
The bailouts are ‘the broken window fallacy’ writ LARGE!
Read “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt for a clear refutation of the economic quackery of the bailouts.
The one who threw the rock through the window was a thug! The one (unConstitutional coup) who is destroying the economy is a thug, or more precisely, the members of the inner circle of the unConstitutional coup are economic terrorists!
I get the impression that you like the book. I could be wrong, but I’m detecting traces of enthusiasm.
I support smaller governments and libertarianism because I’m a mutant with an unusual power. I want to be left alone. My power is the niceguy effect- I can chat to a girl for just five minutes, and I’ll have turned her into a lesbian! Naturally I am using this power for good, by reducing the breeding pool of females so we don’t overpopulate. For five dollars, I promise to never visit your family!
I will say again, please publish these great books as pdfs and allow them to be downloaded after payment.
This decreases the cost of production, and eliminates the cost and time of delivery. I live in China and would love to purchase a number of books from Mises but the cost of delivery is far greater than the cost of the books. And, even airmail delivery can take 2 weeks. If these books were made available as stated, I could purchase and receive delivery instantaneously.
I miss the “feel” of a real book but would rather miss that than miss the actual material.
As for mass distribution, you can just email the pdf for zero cost to anyone, anywhere.
So we should now forever write moneterrorism instead on monetarism? Kinda has an economic ‘bling’ to it, if you will.
Will fit in nicely with a long-time favorite of ‘banksters’ and the newly minted ‘mondustrial policy’.
They seem like perfect targets for the ‘War on Terror’.
You can find this book here: http://mises.org/books/monetarysystem.pdfm and many others here: http://mises.org/literature.aspx
whoops http://mises.org/books/monetarysystem.pdf
We will be happy to put a link from our blog, http://www.forfreedomssake.com to your store. Thanks for the great resources.
We just linked to “The Law” @ the Mises Store. I hope you get some buys from that as well.
DT
We will be happy to put a link from our blog, http://www.forfreedomssake.com to your store. Thanks for the great resources.
We just linked to “The Law” @ the Mises Store. I hope you get some buys from that as well.
DT
The two essays in the book are available if you just want to read them online.
http://mises.org/daily/3229
http://mises.org/daily/3204
Scribd seems to have the little book in it’s entirety.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10325489/A-FreeMarket-Monetary-System-and-The-Pretense-of-Knowledge
Jeffery,
There appears to be a typo at the beginning of the book (based on the Scribd version):
“A claim for equality of material position can be met only be a government with totalitarian powers.”
It’s the Hayek quote on the page before the table of contents, and I assume it’s supposed to read “only BY a government with material powers”.
lol Talk about typos…
Obviously, it was the word “be” that should be “by”. Please ignore MY typo after that (and my misspelling of your name!).
If we need money to pay for mass distribution why dont we ask the government for bailout money. That way we can spend it on printing the books, create jobs at printing factories, and get ourselves out of this recession……!!!!!
Small enough to put in my back pocket?
What are the dimensions? I checked the product page, but said dimensions were not listed.
Yours,
Alex Peak
Sorry, just added. It is 4.25×7 inches.
Aaron: thx for pointing out that typo. I was looking thru the pdf and I read that quote before I saw your post…I didn’t even notice it!
The first essay (“Free Market Monetary System”) starts out saying that the issuance of money ought to be taken out of the hands of government and given to private industry.
Does anyone not think this absurd? How would we calculate the exchange rate between 1 Microsoft “gates” and 1 “google”?
This hearkens back to the old days where the Company paid you in their dollars, provided you with a house (and deducted it from your salary), and the only place the company currency was any good was in the company store.
The Federal Reserve is another matter entirely.
ZZMike,
Microsoft would not provide money in a freemarket system using their current model.
Saying “private industry” is the same as saying “the market as a whole ex-government”. The market just picks what to use for moeny that fulfills the functions that money is supposed to have.
Generally this is precious metals. But whatever the market picks means the guy I’m buying my food from is using it, so I’ll be using it too!
The “old days” are not around anymore for the reason that that “money” does not perform the true role of money. If I am getting issued “Microsoft Dollars” by them because I work for them, they will have total monopoly on the issue of the currency and determining its worth. The money is only a store of value as long as the company exists, and they also have a monopoly on what that money can purchase because they control the supply of goods and services.
Thus I would find myself staring bleakly out of my company store to the one across the street that takes market-based money (again, usually precious metals because of its universality, divisibility, ease of transport, and store of value) where everything is 75% cheaper than what I am paying over here.
So I would just find a job at another company that paid me in market-based money and even if my salary was 50% less in “nominal” terms my cost of living would be 25% of what it was working and earning “microsoft dollars”.
Comments on this entry are closed.