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Dec 5, 2024 | 
lawliberty.org | Paul Mueller |David Goldman |Iain Murray |David Hebert
Analogies have the power to reveal new relationships and to reframe how we think. Good analogies help us understand the world. They use relationships and phenomena we experience to help us understand more complex or abstract phenomena. On the other hand, bad analogies can cause grave errors.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
aier.org | Paul Mueller
Senior Research FellowPaul Mueller is a Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. He received his PhD in economics from George Mason University. Previously, Dr. Mueller taught at The King’s College in New York City. His academic work has appeared in many journals including The Adam Smith Review, The Review of Austrian Economics, and The Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, The Journal of Private Enterprise, and The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
aier.org | Paul Mueller
Table of ContentsExecutive SummaryKey PointsIntroductionSection DescriptionsDownload the PaperDespite being touted as a responsible and sophisticated framework for business and investment, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria lack logical cohesion and internal consistency. Conceptually, no reason exists for why the fundamental ideas within the ESG label should correlate with one another.
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Sep 12, 2024 | 
aier.org | Paul Mueller
Anyone who engages in business experiences transaction costs. Many of these costs are natural “frictions” in a world of imperfect knowledge, uncertainty, and scarcity. Governments, however, tend to multiply transaction costs artificially. Sometimes these artificial transaction costs are pure revenue grabs in the form of fees and taxes. Sometimes they are indirect subsidies or handouts to “accredited” groups or industries whose services are mandated.
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Sep 6, 2024 | 
aier.org | Paul Mueller
Fed-watching has become a hobby for many, and an occupation for some. When will the Fed cut interest rates? (September) How much will it cut interest rates? (25 – 50 basis points) How will this affect credit card and mortgage rates? (They will start coming down)These are the kinds of questions most people ask. But what people wrongly ignore is the Fed’s huge balance sheet and its related consequences: subsidizing explosive government deficit spending and creating a bailout culture.
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Aug 16, 2024 | 
aier.org | Paul Mueller
The Federal Reserve system in the United States is the largest financial institution in the world with more than $7 trillion in assets. It “manages” the most important currency in the world. Its decisions can dramatically affect the course of the largest economy in the world. Wouldn’t it be nice if its officials knew what they were doing? Yet ever since the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has more or less been whistling in the dark.
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Aug 8, 2024 | 
aier.org | Paul Mueller
The national debt surpassed a mind-boggling $35 trillion last week — approximately $100,000 for every man, woman, and child living in the United States. This means a family of four’s share of public debt, ~$400,000, is likely more than they owe on the mortgage of their house. Runaway government spending is no surprise. What is surprising is that one bill passed a couple years ago may end up costing trillions, with a “t,” more than the public was told. That bill is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
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Aug 8, 2024 | 
flipboard.com | Paul Mueller
2 days agoThe Inflation Reduction Act is reaping benefits in his home state of West Virginia, but the senator is getting little love for his efforts. The capstone of Sen. Joe Manchin’s four-decade political career — a sweeping climate law worth hundreds of billions of dollars — might well have cost him his …
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Jul 19, 2024 | 
lawliberty.org | Paul Mueller |Mark Hall |Christopher M Parry |John Grove
When Americans think about religious liberty, our minds naturally turn to the protections offered by the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This amendment, and related federal legislation, offer important protections, but there are numerous areas in which states are free to protect, or not protect, religious liberty.
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Jul 12, 2024 | 
aier.org | Paul Mueller
Leaders in business, government, and finance have increasingly imposed Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria on the rest of society. These top-down restrictions on society are costly and ineffective ways to address perceived and actual social problems. Societies flourish when they are free to solve their problems through decentralized experimentation and innovation. The language and priorities framed by ESG have permeated public and private institutions around the world.
