June 2010
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The Rise of Consumer-Driven Care →
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Canadians Finding Out That Their ‘Free’ Healthcare... →
May 2010
Did Hoover Really Slash Spending? →
When an economy is on the ropes, the last thing in the world it needs is for politicians to squander more resources and for the central bank to print up more green pieces of paper.
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Drugs, Economics, and Liberty →
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“There never was a good war or a bad peace.”
– Benjamin Franklin
States don’t have rights. Individuals do. →
Obama's spending idea is frugality theater →
Barack Obama, an unbeliever genuflecting before the altar of frugality, is asking Congress, as presidents do, to give him something like a line-item veto. Coming in today’s context of his unrelenting agenda of expanding government, his proposal constitutes a counterfeit promise to get serious about controlling spending and the deficit. His purpose is to distract the public while...
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On Bailing Out Union Pensions →
A reasoned response with the appropriate level of politeness:
Fuck the unions. Fuck their pensions. Fuck their violence. Fuck them all with the fucklaser of fury and ill will. And fuck any politician who supports stealing my money to help them.
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Libertarianism is Anti-racism →
More fallout from CNBC’s Pedro Pan “documentary” →
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Pension Reform, California Style →
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On the Oil Spill
On the danger of expecting government to solve all problems:
In yesterday’s Post, E.J. Dionne complained that we’ve “handed vast responsibilities over to a private sector that will never see protecting the public interest as its primary task.”
But as far as incentives go, the spill is all downside for BP, which is hemorrhaging market value along with oil. In contrast, the federal...
Everything You Love You Owe to Capitalism →
An old essay, but a great one:
The state thrives on an economically ignorant public. This is the only way it can get away with blaming inflation or recession on consumers, or claiming that the government’s fiscal problems are due to our paying too little in taxes. It is economic ignorance that permits the regulatory agencies to claim that they are protecting us as versus denying us choice....
CNBC and their Pedro Pan documentary →
The story was not presented [accurately] as a tale of desperate and courageous parents doing the unthinkable to save their children from tyranny. Instead, the parents of these children were depicted as paranoid and knee-jerk reactionaries who fell victim to CIA lies and deceptions.
Paying What's "Fair" in Taxes →
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$1B Federal Dollars on “Food Deserts” →
I just became aware of these “food deserts” from a family member.
Naturally, to the left, everything is a crisis, and they wouldn’t want a good crisis to go to waste:
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer are urging Congress to put up money to help build...
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We Don't Need a Teacher Bailout →
So the supposedly huge [education] cuts we’re facing are actually pretty small, and we’ve been pouring money and people into schools for decades without producing any improvements. Those are reasons enough to say “no way” to any federal bailout.
…[Additionally,] the “stimulus” already included about $100 billion for education, most of which was...
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Marijuana Legalization in California →
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Rand Paul and the Civil Rights Act →
I know it’s hard to escape all the Rand Paul discussions but I promise to continue to only link to quality columns like this one:
[I]ndividuals are either free to do anything peaceful or they are not. If politicians decide, we have arbitrary government. But government is force, and force is moral only in response to force.
NBA Star Explains the Economics of Collusion →
Great piece on anti-trust.
Obama's Sophistry About Wall Street "Special... →
In order to push financial reform through the finish line, the president wants you to give him $5+ to counter special interest money that he pocketed to pass health care reform. Luckily for him, there’s one born every minute.
Public Favors Federal Wage Freeze →
Ignore the Squawking Politicians →
[B]laming investors sounds lame and uninteresting. So the word “speculators” is trotted out in an effort to fool voters into thinking that a special species of financial ghouls suddenly materialized to wreak unjustified financial havoc.
Such accusations, though, are always and everywhere excuses for politicians’ harmful intrusions into the economy.
The Blight Stops Here? →
In sum, a powerful state agency secretly colluded with a powerful private university in order to trample constitutional rights, violate the letter and spirit of the law, and force law-abiding tenants out of their homes and businesses in order to manufacture self-serving blight conditions that disfigured an otherwise livable and commercially viable neighborhood. If there was ever a case where New...
Libertarianism Hits the Big Time →
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Going "Green" →
Gasoline has 80 times the energy density of the best lithium ion batteries. There’s no conspiracy here of big oil or big auto. It’s a conspiracy of physics.
Washington makes Paris look frugal →
More Garbage-In-Garbage-Out from CBO →
The L.P.: Enemy of the Good →
Regulatory Spending Actually Rose under Bush →
The Rand Paul Distraction →
If you were a convention delegate in 1778, would you have voted to ratify the Constitution of the United States?
If the answer is yes—and you don’t hate America, do you?!—it’s only fair we conclude that you support restricting voting rights to male landowners exclusively. Surely, from your position, we can also deduce that you support slavery.
Now, if the answer is nay on ratification,...
On Self-Ownership and Rand Paul →
If we own ourselves, it follows that no one else can own us—the most obvious way in which slavery violates human rights. It also follows that we own our labor, which means we decide who benefits from it and under what terms, and the fruits of our labor, which means we control access to our property. All these rights were flagrantly violated not only by slavery but by the racist Jim Crow regime...
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“Whatever the State saith is a lie; whatever it hath is a theft.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
The Private Provision of Public Goods →
Where is the hyperinflation? →
The bitter irony is that economic “recovery” will mark the beginning of the inflationary disaster.
The Dalai Lama is Still a Marxist, Stupid →
Can I suggest this sort of dumb statement - Marxism has “moral” ethics yet drives down everyone’s standard of living; capitalism has no ethics, yet makes everyone life better? - is yet one more sign that the Dalai Lama is not a serious thinker or observer of life?
How to Create the Illusion of Low Taxes →
Rand Paul, Civil Rights, and More Liberal... →
A Teachable Moment for Liberty →
France's Phony Secularism →
[I]f the French and Hitchens were serious about either secularism or liberalism, instead of asking Muslim women to shed the burqa, they would be shedding their own proselytizing prejudice against it.
Federal Aid: 45 Years of Failure →
The federal aid system is crazy. Even if federal aid is a good idea in theory–and it isn’t–the central planners haven’t been able to make it work as they envisioned in more than four decades. The federal aid system has simply been a giant make-work project for the millions of well-paid federal/state/local administrators who handle all the paperwork and regulations.
Even if federal aid...
Lessons from the Death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones →
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Port of L.A. Pays to Clean Up Trucks That Don't... →
All the while favoring the big trucking companies over the small.
Hooray, government!
BP and Regulatory Capture →
The Further Left You Are the Less You Know About... →
Fact.
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California's Hidden Deficit Keeps Growing →
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California closes the book on Texas →
End government schools; then there is no controversy as parents can choose the school, and thus choose (and shape) the curriculum, for their own child.
