Smugglers: True Heroes of Liberty
https://mises.org/mises-wire/smugglers-true-heroes-liberty
By Sergio Lopez
> Even though our legal authorities treat smugglers as criminals, smugglers actually are promoters of liberty who usually break unjust laws. The US was practically founded on smuggling.
Bitcoin Lightning Wallets Compared
# Video Description
> In this video, I discuss the trade-offs made by different Bitcoin wallets when interacting on-chain, over Lightning, and over the Liquid Network.
> In a high on-chain transaction fee environment, it can be helpful to minimize interaction with the base layer, which is where wallets like Aqua can be helpful, using Liquid instead of on-chain as its "base layer."
> I also discuss the Muun Wallet, Wallet of Satoshi, Mutiny Wallet, Strike Wallet, and the Phoenix Wallet.
Woods' Law
No matter who you vote for, you get John McCain.
nostr:note1s5l3sxmwfal38ej3q343rfst2jjv9uhjg5rfcsmrn89z2de844qsy4pd7j
The Failure of Conservatism
https://mises.org/misesian/failure-conservatism
By David Gordon
> The neoconservatives are prime examples of what happens when the temptation to empire and hegemony, far from being resisted, is eagerly embraced by conservatives.
Don't Call It Free Trade
https://mises.org/mises-wire/dont-call-it-free-trade
By Connor O’Keeffe
> According to an article in The Atlantic, Washington is turning away from its previous commitment to “free trade.” However, there never was a “free trade consensus” because Washington always has sought state-managed trade.
Aqua Wallet: A Great New Bitcoin Mobile Wallet
# Video Description
> In this video, I discuss the new mobile Aqua Wallet, and how it uses on-chain BTC, L-BTC, and BTC over the Lightning Network.
> The Aqua Wallet is a great wallet to bring to Latin America, or to use in your home country when on-chain transaction fees are high.
> One strategy is to stack L-BTC on Aqua (receiving via Lightning or Liquid) and then swap into on-chain BTC once you have over 1 million sats.
> Aqua Wallet provides a nice work-around if you don't want to have to deal with Lightning channel management on a non-custodial Lightning wallet.
Plenty, but you have to assume ill-intent on behalf of policy makers.
Basketball Loses a Legend... Let me tell you about him
An awesome recap a really weird guy. RIP Bill Walton.
# Video Description
> An evaluation of the legacy of Bill Walton. RIP you Legend.
Judy Shelton’s Lasting Legacies
https://mises.org/mises-wire/judy-sheltons-lasting-legacies
By George Ford Smith
> While her record is hardly perfect, Judy Shelton has been a rarity among monetary economists: an advocate for gold and sound money.
Shelton:
> Inflation is the enemy of capitalism, chiseling away at the foundation of free markets and the laws of supply and demand. It distorts price signals, making retailers look like profiteers and deceiving workers into thinking their wages have gone up. It pushes families into higher income tax brackets without increasing their real consumption opportunities.
Can Data by Itself Inform Us about the Real World?
https://mises.org/mises-wire/can-data-itself-inform-us-about-real-world
By Frank Shostak
> Mainstream economists insist that data alone can explain economic events, permitting them to test economic theories. In truth, without sound theory, data is meaningless.
Central Banks Are Destroying Our Economies
https://mises.org/mises-wire/central-banks-are-destroying-our-economies
By André Marques
> Central banks intervene in order to “create demand,” and then they intervene in order to try to mitigate the damage they caused earlier. This is a never-ending scenario of economic destruction.
Rothbard on inflation:
> The supply of funds for investment apparently increases, and the interest rate is lowered. Businessmen, in short, are misled by the bank inflation into believing that the supply of saved funds is greater than it really is. Now, when saved funds increase, businessmen invest in “longer processes of production,” i.e., the capital structure is lengthened, especially in the “higher orders” most remote from the consumer.
California Dreamin’: Minimum Wage Hikes Lead to Fewer Jobs and Higher Prices
# Video Description
> A few years ago, I reported that Seattle’s minimum wage hike killed jobs.
> Now, California is making the same mistake.
> Fast food workers in California fought hard for a $20 minimum wage.
> They won.
> Now they have to face the unintended consequences:
Job loss, higher prices, automation replacing people, and fewer opportunities for the young and unskilled.
> Will politicians ever learn?
The First Bitcoin Presidential Race
# Video Description
> In this video, I discuss Trump's pivot to being pro-crypto and pro-Bitcoin and what this means for the US 2024 election.
> Biden could quickly pivot and front-run Trump on these same issues (including banning CBDCs and freeing Ross Ulbricht), if he is smart and wants to win in November.
> Biden needs to distance himself from Elizabeth Warren and her "anti-crypto army," which is clearly a losing stance for any politician in America now.
> The big conclusion here is that the US government is NOT going to ban Bitcoin any time soon.
> Even if Trump wins, we are going to need to remain vigilant about self-custody, privacy, and attempts by central bankers to control politicians behind the scenes.
> Going forward, politicians will continue to trip over themselves to win Bitcoiners' votes.
You can always post them on Stacker News and enable nostr cross-posting.
Fast Food Prices Soar Under: McDonalds & Taco Bell Prices Go Crazy
This is a clip from TimCast IRL in which Phil Labonte gives an excellent description of Cantillon Effects.
I hadn't really thought about how maintaining good credit scores protects against inflations, because it gives you easier access to newly created money.
Defining Ordered Individualism
https://mises.org/mises-wire/defining-ordered-individualism
By Rhesa Browning
> Praxeology is the key to understanding economic relationships. Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer emphasized the importance of how individuals view the world.
## Mises:
> That there are nations, states, and churches, that there is social cooperation under the division of labor, becomes discernible only in the actions of certain individuals. Nobody ever perceived a nation without perceiving its members. In this sense one may say that a social collective comes into being through the actions of individuals. That does not mean that the individual is temporally antecedent. It merely means that definite actions of individuals constitute the collective.
## Schaeffer:
> What they are in their thought world determines how they act. This is true of their value systems and it is true of their creativity. It is true of their corporate actions, such as political decisions, and it is true of their personal lives. The results of their thought world flow through their fingers from their tongues into the external world. This is true of Michelangelo’s chisel, and it is true of a dictator’s sword.
## Schaeffer:
> “As a man thinketh, so is he.” is really most profound. An individual is not just the product of the forces around him. He has a mind, an inner world. Then, having thought, a person can bring forth actions into the external world and thus influence it. People are apt to look at the outer theater of action, forgetting the actor who “lives in the mind” and who therefore is the true actor in the external world.
## Mises:
> Society is the outcome of conscious and purposeful behavior. This does not mean that individuals have concluded contracts by virtue of which they have founded human society. The actions which have brought about social cooperation and daily bring it about anew do not aim at anything else than cooperation and coadjuvancy with others for the attainment of definite singular ends. The total complex of the mutual relations created by such concerted actions is called society. It substitutes collaboration for the – at least conceivable – isolated life of individuals. Society is division of labor and combination of labor. In his capacity as an acting animal man becomes a social animal.
Understanding Reason Is Paramount to Understanding Liberty
https://mises.org/mises-wire/understanding-reason-paramount-understanding-liberty
By Wanjiru Njoya
> Reason is both understandable and universal. We cannot abandon it, for if we do, we abandon liberty itself.
> Because critical theory rejects reason, it cannot be questioned. Under this rubric, [Allen C.] Guelzo says, the only purpose of questions is to serve the interests of the oppressive class, and “any answer you come up with, which doesn’t speak in terms of some hidden structure of oppression, can simply be dismissed as part of the structure of oppression.”
> it is a poor makeshift to dispose of a theory by referring to its historical background, to the “spirit” of its time, to the material conditions of the country of its origin, and to any personal qualities of its authors. A theory is subject to the tribunal of reason only. The yardstick to be applied is always the yardstick of reason.
> How does one discover the content of these principles? How do we distinguish one person’s identification of a transcendent “moral principle” from another person’s expression of a private prejudice? Are the natural rights theorists doing anything more than projecting their subjective preferences onto the universe and then characterizing them as “eternal principles”?
> One common, flip criticism by opponents of natural law is: who is to establish the alleged truths about man? The answer is not who but what: man’s reason. Man’s reason is objective, i.e., it can be employed by all men to yield truths about the world. To ask what is man’s nature is to invite the answer. Go thou and study and find out!
Understanding Reason Is Paramount to Understanding Liberty
https://mises.org/mises-wire/understanding-reason-paramount-understanding-liberty
By Wanjiru Njoya
> Reason is both understandable and universal. We cannot abandon it, for if we do, we abandon liberty itself.
Understanding Reason Is Paramount to Understanding Liberty
https://mises.org/mises-wire/understanding-reason-paramount-understanding-liberty