Ryan W. McMaken
Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power and Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in public policy and international relations from the University of Colorado. He was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.
Ryan W. McMaken Articles
For a few days during the early weeks of the current Trump administration, it appeared that the Trump team might actually try to rein in the Federal Reserve. Trump and Elon Musk hinted that they would push for an audit of the Federal...
President Donald Trump last week announced new plans for a $1 trillion defense budget in 2026. Trump bragged about his big plans for spending ever larger amounts of taxpayer funds, stating at a meeting with Israeli President Benjamin...
Money-supply growth rose year over year in February for the seventh month in a row, the first time this has happened since mid-2022. The current trend in money-supply growth suggests a continued reversal of more than a year of historically...
In discussions surrounding of the world’s monetary systems today there is usually one thing almost everyone can agree on: that money should be controlled by the organizations we call “states” or “sovereign states.” Nowadays when we say “...
Rand Paul, Elon Musk, and several others, have recently called for an audit of the US government’s gold holdings. This has reminded many Americans that the US government owns a hoard of gold—of 261 million ounces—at Fort Knox and other...
I’m all in favor of a thorough and public audit of the US’s gold reserves. This includes the gold, not only at Fort Knox, but also at the other gold storage facilities at West Point, Denver, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Ron Paul...
In recent days, President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Senator Rand Paul, and some others have pressed for an audit of the US gold reserves, with a special focus on the gold at Fort Knox. This is perfectly reasonable given that the US gold...
Money-supply growth rose year over year in November for the fourth month in a row, the first time this has happened since the four months ending in October of 2022. The current trend in money-supply growth suggests a significant and...
According to the latest monthly statement from the Treasury Department, the US government spent $668 billion in November, the second month of the 2025 fiscal year. That’s in addition to October’s spending total of $584 billion, for a total...
According to the most recent report from the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US economy added only 12,000 payroll jobs during October. This was the smallest month-to-month employment gain in nearly four years. Moreover...
