Mises Media

Ryan McMaken takes a deep dive on food stamp spending, food stamp recipients, and how Big Ag and other industry lobbyists fight to keep food stamp spending flowing and increasing. 

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Dr. Shawn Ritenour draws on Mises to show that specialization and trade align long-run interests and raise living standards when prices are guided by sound money. He also argues that state interventions—especially Fed bailouts and credit expansion—pit citizen against citizen and fuel inequality, underscoring the need for real economic education of the kind fostered by the Mises Institute.

Sponsored by Don Printz.

Recorded at the Mises Supporters Summit in Delray Beach, Florida, on October 17, 2025.

Is paying down the federal debt a recession trigger? Bob takes on the MMT claim and checks the record, citing US debt payoffs, Canada’s 1990s reforms, and ECB case studies. Conclusion: real wealth beats accounting tricks and paydowns aren’t a mechanical path to recession.

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Speaking at the recent Mises Institute Supporters Summit, Mark Thornton argues that lasting reform comes from the bottom up, not from political edict. Drawing on Hayek’s “worst get to the top” insight, Mark contrasts elite-driven prohibition with the citizen-led wave of decriminalization and legalization across states and abroad. Mark also explains the role of “salutary neglect” by local officials, the Oregon backlash as a failure of property-rights enforcement—not of liberty—and the scholarly case against the drug war. The crux: markets and civil society integrate; top-down policy divides.

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On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Jonathan Newman joins Ryan and Tho to discuss this week's Fed rate cut, and to breakdown down Jerome Powell's most recent press conference.

When studying praxeology, something as trivial as the recipe for chocolate cake can become a way to better teach us Austrian economics.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/recipes-rothbard-what-chocolate-cake-can-teach-about-economics

Murray Rothbard’s view of the origins of World War II has an important lesson for us today.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/murray-rothbard-and-world-war-ii-origins

Alex Pollock joins the Human Action Podcast to explain his recent Congressional testimony on the Fed’s growing insolvency and mandate overreach. The Fed now admits to $243 billion in operating losses and nearly $1 trillion in mark-to-market losses, leaving it with negative capital of about $197 billion. Pollock explains how the central bank transformed itself into “the biggest 1980s-style savings and loan in history” — funding short while buying long, and bleeding cash as interest rates rose.

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Henry Hazlett wrote in Economics in One Lesson that each generation has to relearn economic fallacies that government employs when implementing bad policies. New Yorkers are about to learn a lot of new lessons.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/all-means-elect-mamdani-and-watch-his-socialist-laboratory-work

Trump's team is citing the fentanyl crisis to justify its escalations near Venezuela. But virtually all illicit fentanyl is made and smuggled thousands of miles away. If war or regime change in Venezuela is good for the American people, why hide the true motivations?

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/trump-administration-lying-us-another-war

The food stamp program is a way for PepsiCo and the Coca-Cola company to legally rip off the taxpayers.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-food-industry-lobbyists-keep-food-stamp-gravy-train-going

James Bovard surveys attacks on property rights—from “open-fields” searches and no-knock raids to eminent domain and civil asset forfeiture—showing how each erodes privacy and freedom.

Sponsored by Jeff Leskovar.

Recorded at the Mises Supporters Summit in Delray Beach, Florida, on October 18, 2025.

For more than 60 years, the US government has enforced a trade embargo against Cuba, ostensibly to force the communist government into collapse. The only thing that has collapsed, however, is the logic in the US policy.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/brief-history-enduring-american-embargo-against-cuba

September’s fiscal surplus was not thanks to tariff revenue. In truth, it was thanks to Americans paying more in income tax. Tariffs were only 5.7 percent of revenue.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/no-tariffs-did-not-cause-septembers-budget-surplus

Despite the change in the White House, critical race theory is still with us, dominating the academic sectors and being ingrained in progressive culture. We need to better recognize what it is and how it works in order to better refute it.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-recognize-critical-race-theory

No one doubts that the US is a politically and culturally divided nation. Contrary to much of public opinion, politicians like Donald Trump did not cause the crisis. Instead, as Lawrence Mead writes, they are a symptom of the government's assault on our culture.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/recognizing-roots-current-us-political-turmoil

Mark Thornton reviews David Howden’s data-driven guide to long-horizon investing in commodities, useful even for Austrians wary of statistics. Mark explains how the book’s method ranks assets by relative valuation, generates 10-year return forecasts, and frames risk premiums, using gold and silver as case studies. Mark highlights how a formal model can still complement Austrian fundamentals and capital-allocation thinking, and he previews an upcoming episode on silver that will build on these results.

Purchase The Almanac of Commodities by David Howden at http://mises.org/almanac

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As a true market entrepreneur, as opposed to a political entrepreneur, James J. Hill successfully built a transcontinental railroad, outcompeting his government-subsidized competitors.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/myth-robber-barons-james-hill-versus-crony-competitors

Alex Pollock explains how monopoly money empowers the state to finance deficits and wars, and why legal tender laws should give way to free choice in money. He explores why genuine competitors—likely led by gold—would discipline issuers, noting central banks’ renewed appetite for bullion as an emergent currency competition.

Sponsored by Yousif Almoayyed.

Recorded at the Mises Supporters Summit in Delray Beach, Florida, on October 17, 2025.

On this special episode of Power and Market, Joshua Mawhorter joins Tho Bishop and Connor O'Keeffe to talk about the recent Supporters Summit, the legacy of Mises.org, and a few books they are reading.

Once again, the Trump administration’s “dealmaking” on international trade has blown up, this time pulling the rug from under US soybean farmers. This isn’t the first trade policy fiasco, nor will it be the last.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/america-hurts-farmers-and-discounts-chinas-soy-imports-while-providing-crutch-argentina

Dr. Joe Salerno shows how market‑led falling prices spread growth gains even when nominal wages don’t change. The takeaway: don’t fear natural deflation—fear policies that target permanent inflation.

Sponsored by Murray and Florence Sabrin.

Recorded at the Mises Supporters Summit in Delray Beach, Florida, on October 17, 2025.

The governmental response to the covid pandemic was to cripple the economy. To compensate for the damage, the Federal Reserve unleashed massive inflation in an attempt to do what the Fed always does in a crisis: bail out the economic actors.

Read the article here: https://mises.org/mises-wire/we-have-not-properly-reckoned-economic-insanity-2020

Be sure to follow the Guns and Butter podcast at https://Mises.org/GB

The concept of “planned obsolescence” makes no economic sense and is often an excuse for governments to harass and shake down innovative entrepreneurs. Much of so-called planned obsolescence is really entrepreneurship at work improving products for users and consumers.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/myth-planned-obsolescence

“I see that you are preparing the groundwork for supporting Nixon,” Rothbard wrote Meyer. “Again, for shame! Is this what conservative principles are coming down to...?"

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/new-rothbard-letters-show-his-early-opposition-both-nixon-and-reagan

There have been four gold busts under the fiat dollar money regimes since the “freeing” of the gold price in March 1968. Will the current gold boom end in a similar bust?

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/what-will-next-gold-bust-look

In this episode of the Human Action Podcast, Bob unpacks Lerner’s Symmetry Theorem—the classic result that, under tight conditions, an import tariff is equivalent to an export tax. He applies the framework to recent 100% China‑tariff headlines, explaining why the dollar might strengthen in theory yet sometimes weakens in practice once retaliation and policy signaling are factored in.

The Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your free copy at Mis...

The US Constitution as originally written and understood no longer exists. The first wave of “progressives” reinterpreted it to their liking before later generations of progressives finished the job.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-progressives-broke-constitution-and-praised-themselves-it

Popular views of capitalism and free markets are not shaped by the facts, but rather by anti-capitalist intellectuals and the media.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/popular-media-romanticism-and-statist-insinuation

Mark Thornton shares a timely conversation from the Liberty & Finance podcast with Elijah K. Johnson. Mark explains why $50 silver is a psychological barrier, and how decades of tech shifts, by-product mining, and central-bank gold buying shaped today’s divergence between gold and silver. The thread tying it all together: easy money seeds malinvestment and fragility; metals hedge the fallout.

Be sure to follow Minor Issues at https://Mises.org/MinorIssues

This week, Bob tackles growing concerns about artificial intelligence, automation, and mass unemployment. Using the principles of marginal productivity and comparative advantage, he shows how the standard economic arguments still apply—even in the age of ChatGPT and robotics. Responding directly to viral tweets from Matt Walsh, Bob dismantles the popular belief that AI will inevitably destroy human labor markets. He explains why highly skilled labor has always coexisted with less-skilled workers and why new technologies, despite their disruptive effects, tend to improve standards of living for everyone over time.

The Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of...

Mark Thornton lays the groundwork for understanding gold and silver before politics gets involved. Mark explains why monetary metals emerge from market “evolution,” how their non-consumptive use creates massive above-ground stocks, and why the same metal serves multiple markets (money vs. consumption) with one price. He explains how demand shifts trigger conservation and recycling, why new mining lags price spikes, how “near-monies” substitute when people economize on cash balances, and why any apparent stability (even par relationships) reflects underlying market conditions, not decree. Today’s price volatility is largely the artifact of intervention, not the metals themselves.

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Ryan and political scientist Joseph Solis-Mullen talk about how taxes, war, and the state are all part of a centuries-old formula for impoverishing the productive class while enriching the government class.  

Be sure to follow Radio Rothbard at https://Mises.org/RadioRothbard

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The yearning for a state-controlled system is not born of compassion for others but rather of infantile selfishness.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/economics-and-infantilization-culture

On this episode of Power and Market, Ryan, Connor, and Tho look at this week's headlines, including the prospects for the Gaza peace deal, blue state propaganda, the Jay Jones text message scandal, and an inevitable new subsidy for Obamacare.

There's still time to join the 2025 Mises Institute Supporters Summit in Delray Beach, Florida. Learn more here.

“Science” is now indistinguishable from politics. As the “acid rain” hysteria showed back in the 1970s and 1980s, “follow the science” is just a political slogan, unrelated to actual science.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/acid-rain-scare-and-science-industrial-complex

Bari Weiss’s appointment to head CBS News has brought cries of anguish from the usual suspects on the left and approval from some on the right. But will she really bring the kind of change that will challenge the political establishment? Probably not.

Read the article here: https://mises.org/mises-wire/bari-weiss-cbs-new-direction-or-misdirection

Be sure to follow the Guns and Butter podcast at https://Mises.org/GB

Once upon a time, American firms built with the long term in view, and the government did not try to hinder them. Today, thanks to reckless federal government spending, we are living hand-to-mouth, accumulating massive debts, and soon enough will be broke.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/going-broke

“The Civil War was really the watershed,” he wrote Meyer. “Lincoln was America’s first dictator, and almost all the Republican Acts were monstrous.”

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/letters-frank-meyer-reveal-rothbards-views-lincoln-slavery-and-popular-sovereignty

The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk has focused attention on political violence. Ludwig von Mises, not surprisingly, understood that tying morality to politicized state helps create the climate where political violence is prevalent.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/mises-separating-morality-and-state