EDITORIAL Showing 551 - 600 of 1951
The Lie of Moral Mercantilism
May 24, 2014
Three news items caught my attention recently. They speak to mercantilist immorality, and I'll explain more clearly what that means toward the end of this article. First, let's look at the news items. An article entitled, "Car Exec Loses Money On Electric Cars, ...
Speaking Truth to Monetary Power
May 24, 2014
Until Ron Paul raised the issue at the national level in 2007, the Federal Reserve System had been treated with the kind of lazy indifference or acquiescence with which the public gradually comes to accept any institution of long standing. To be sure, most of t ...
If You Meet John Galt On The Road, Kill Him
May 22, 2014
John Galt is the protagonist of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged and expresses her vision of the ideal man. The title of this article flashed at me during a discussion with a fellow who argued adamantly against idealism. He wanted it stamped out of libertarianis ...
Short Lesson in Schools of Ethics
May 21, 2014
I teach ethics, mainly business ethics, and here is a brief outline of some of the more prominent schools I discuss in class: A. Ethical hedonism is the view that everyone ought to seek to obtain as much physical pleasure in life as possible. This has appeal be ...
More on the Belgium Treasury Purchase
May 21, 2014
In response to our account of the mysterious large rise in Belgium's Treasury purchases, it was suggested that the transaction would show up on the Fed's balance sheet. However, the Fed is under no obligation to show the transaction. The $141.2 billion in Treas ...
Lessons from the Great French Inflation
May 20, 2014
Governments have an insatiable appetite for the wealth of their subjects. When governments find it impossible to continue raising taxes or borrowing funds, they have invariably turned to printing paper money to finance their growing expenditures. The resulting ...
Tax Reform is Useless Without Spending Reform
May 19, 2014
Recently, Republican leaders in Congress unveiled a "tax reform" plan that they claimed would provide the American people with a simpler, fairer and more efficient tax system. While this plan does lower some tax rates and contains some other changes that may ma ...
EU Plotted to Take Down Berlusconi – How Did We Know?
May 17, 2014
The UK Telegraph has published an article entitled, "EU officials plotted IMF attack to bring rebellious Italy to its knees." The crux of the article is that Tim Geithner, in his book Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, reveals that top EU officials a ...
First They Came For The Porn Stars…
May 15, 2014
The Department of Justice (DOJ) program is called Operation Choke Point. The choke point is America's payment infrastructure through which an estimated $5 trillion in consumer purchases flow each year; more than eight million merchants use it to process credit ...
Libertarianism Isn't Utopian
May 14, 2014
Although it is prudent to be skeptical about the entries found at Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia offers a sound account of utopias: "Utopia is a term for an ideal society. It has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempted to create an ...
Lessons from the Great Austrian Inflation
May 13, 2014
This year marks one hundred years since the beginning of the First World War in the summer of 1914. The Great War, as it used to be called, brought great devastation in its wake. Millions of human lives were lost on the battlefields of Europe, vast amounts of a ...
The Great Deceiver — The Federal Reserve
May 13, 2014
Is the Fed "tapering"? Did the Fed really cut its bond purchases during the three-month period November 2013 through January 2014? Apparently not if foreign holders of Treasuries are unloading them. From November 2013 through January 2014 Belgium with a GDP of ...
What Does the US Government Want In Ukraine?
May 12, 2014
In several eastern Ukrainian towns over the past week, the military opened fire on its own citizens. Dozens may have been killed in the violence. Although the US government generally condemns a country's use of military force against its own population, especia ...
Musings on Modernity
May 09, 2014
It is believed by many on the left today that our Constitution resulted from the Founding Fathers deceitfully conspiring to form a society ruled by aristocrats, and that the seeds for modernity's corruption lie in the Founders' elitist Constitution that now pla ...
The Most Influential Man You Haven't Heard Of
May 08, 2014
One man has answered the question, "How much does it cost to buy the U.S. Senate?" The price tag and his name came to light as the only plausible explanation for an otherwise inexplicable event. Two months ago, an even more bizarre spectacle than usual took pla ...
Egalitarian Nightmares
May 07, 2014

Probably every era has its scary ideology and ours, I'm afraid, is egalitarianism. The most prominent thinkers – those hailed and being featured in major journals, by prestigious publishers, in respected forums of opinion and so forth – such as Amartya S ...

Gangster State America – Where Is America's Democracy?
May 07, 2014
Anyone who looks carefully behind the veil of words cannot find democracy in America. For years I have been writing that the US government is no longer accountable to law or to the people (see, for example, my book, How America Was Lost). The Constitution has b ...
The Inequality Trap Distracts from the Real Issue of Freedom
May 06, 2014
A new book by French economist Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has recently caused a major stir on the opinion pages of newspapers and magazines. Piketty has resurrected from the ash heap of history Karl Marx's claim that capitalism inescap ...
Why We’re No Longer Number One
May 05, 2014
Last week World Bank economists predicted that China would soon displace the United States as the world's largest economy. The fact that this one-time economic basket case is now positioned to surpass the US is one more sign of the damage done to American prosp ...
Yellen: How High Is Up?
May 03, 2014
Janet Yellen is at it again, poormouthing the economy. In a Bloomberg article entitled "Yellen Fed Resigns Itself to Diminished Growth Expectations," we get the sad news that there isn't going to be a white-hot economy any time soon, certainly not in the US. An ...
Future of Libertarianism
May 02, 2014
Marxists were notorious for infighting over the most trivial differences. One group would secede from another, reverse the word order of the group it had seceded from, and declare itself the new and pure group. The first group, the new group would declare to th ...
Thank Heaven for Gold Manipulators – A Sequel
May 02, 2014
My missive under the same title (Daily Bell, April 18, 2014) created quite a stir. As pointed out, the title is tongue-in-cheek and should be interpreted in the light of trying to find the best method to combat the fiat currency inflicted upon the population of ...
What About Justice? Anarchy's Answer
May 01, 2014
The state is not necessary for there to be law in society. In North America, the indispensable laws – the ones that protect person and property – evolved from customary laws or from common law. Customary laws are the rules of conduct that arise naturally as ...
US Economy Is a House of Cards
May 01, 2014
The US economy is a house of cards. Every aspect of it is fraudulent, and the illusion of recovery is created with fraudulent statistics. American capitalism itself is an illusion. All financial markets are rigged. Massive liquidity poured into financial market ...
Individualism, the Collectivists' Nemesis
April 30, 2014
It is individualism that the American Founders elevated into political prominence and it is individualism that most politicians and governments, including America's, find most annoying because it is the bulwark against arbitrary power. If, as the Declaration of ...
The Lower Cost of a Truly Limited Government
April 29, 2014
A demonstration of just how far the United States has moved from its original founding principles is seen in the fact that in all the jousting over ObamaCare, the general rise in "entitlement" spending and the burden of government regulation over American enter ...
Obama's Drone Wars Undermine American Values
April 28, 2014
Earlier this month, CIA-operated drones killed as many as 55 people in Yemen in several separate strikes. Although it was claimed that those killed were "militants," according to press reports at least three civilians were killed and at least five others wounde ...
The Volatility of War, the Promise of Gold
April 26, 2014
AP is reporting that Ukraine fears Russian invasion. The fears were apparently expressed by Ukraine's deputy foreign minister. "We have the information we are in danger," Danylo Lubkivsky told reporters at the United Nations, according to AP. The escalation in ...
Keynesianism's Ugly Secret
April 25, 2014
It is now five years since the crash of 2008. Today's media and much of our academic crowd, of course, believe that the crisis has been handled, and that we can settle back to "business as usual." But such pundits are so immersed in the Keynesian paradigm that ...
What is Individualist or Libertarian Anarchism?
April 24, 2014
For many people, the personal path to freedom is anarchism. It is not merely a political position but also a profound understanding that the natural state of man is freedom. The most common definition of "anarchism" is "without the state." Anarchism views the s ...
Rights Before Law
April 23, 2014
The point of government among free men and women is to protect individual rights. The law rests on rights. Before there is law, codified or part of local practice, there are people, individuals with their rights who may need and want competent and professional ...
Why Government Grows, and How to Reverse It
April 22, 2014
Regardless of where someone may view himself along the political spectrum (conservative, libertarian, or modern liberal), there are always a variety of government programs and activities that they either think are not worth the money or should not be the busine ...
Nevada Standoff a Symptom of Increasing Authoritarianism
April 21, 2014
The nation's attention has for the past few weeks been riveted by a standoff in Nevada between armed federal agents and the Bundys, a ranching family who believe the federal government is exceeding its authority by assessing "fees" against ranchers who graze ca ...
Seizing the Marijuana Meme Despite Naysaying and Sensationalist Warnings
April 19, 2014
Does occasional pot use cause brain damage? If you read US headlines in the last few days you would assume the answer is a resounding yes. A study by three researchers at Northwestern University and Harvard Medical School, released April 16 in The Journal of Ne ...
Thank Heaven for Gold Manipulators
April 18, 2014
This rejoinder was prompted by the Daily Bell interview with Bill Murphy of GATA (March 30, 2014). I shall accept, for the sake of argument, Murphy's premise that the dollar price of gold is heavily manipulated by the U.S. government in order to keep it in chec ...
The Next IRS Tactic vs. Expats and Accidental Americans?
April 17, 2014
According to the State Department's estimate (January 2013), approximately 6.8 million Americans live abroad. Many more "accidental Americans" live outside the U.S. In the future, both may confront a powerful new weapon wielded by the Internal Revenue Service ( ...
Besmirching Markets
April 16, 2014
As an avid reader of all kinds of fiction – part entertainment, part cultural anthropology – my attention is perked whenever I see authors get sneaky on us. This occurs often when they wish to make a political point but not to take responsibility for doing ...
The Free Market vs. the Interventionist State
April 15, 2014
In whatever direction we turn, we find the heavy hand of government intruding into virtually every aspect of American society. Indeed, it has reached the point that it would be a lot easier to list those areas of people's lives into which government does not im ...
Another Phony Budget Debate
April 14, 2014
Anyone watching last week's debate over the Republican budget resolution would have experienced déjà vu, as the debate bore a depressing similarity to those of previous years. Once again, the Republicans claimed their budget would cut spending in a responsibl ...
BIRDBRAINS: Why the Mainstream Media Promotes Them
April 14, 2014
Before I address exactly what a "birdbrain" is, and how they are effectively utilized by the Mainstream Media, I want to go over the facts as to exactly what the Mainstream Media is. The most significant fact to remember about the Mainstream Media is that it is ...
Do Top Technology Companies Serve More Than One Master?
April 12, 2014
A report in the Wall Street Journal states that "44% of Twitter accounts have never sent a tweet." The article goes on to maintain that this is "not a problem," because Twitter is signing up lots of NEW accounts. Of course, most of those accounts remain inactiv ...
The Economic Abomination of Accredited Investors
April 10, 2014
America, Canada and the European Union (among others) shell out investment privileges to the rich so they can become richer, and the average person can't. After all, why be in the elite if anyone can join? The scam is called "accredited investors." The rich who ...
Is the US or the World Coming to an End?
April 10, 2014
It will be one or the other. 2014 is shaping up as a year of reckoning for the United States. Two pressures are building on the US dollar. One pressure comes from the Federal Reserve's declining ability to rig the price of gold as Western gold supplies shrivel ...
Selling the Rope…
April 09, 2014
Lenin – or was it Marx or Stalin? – is said to have observed, "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." (Attribution is mixed!) What this means is that people who are in business aren't political philosophers or economist but hav ...
The War on Raw Milk
April 09, 2014
Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) and a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers have recently introduced legislation to allow for the sale of raw milk, i.e., unpasteurized milk. Their Milk Freedom Act of 2014 would make it legal for "certified dairy farmers" to sell u ...
Is the Case for Liberty Too Extreme?
April 08, 2014
If there is one label more than any other that principled advocates of individual liberty are often stamped with it is that they are "extremists." You are so extreme, it is said. What is wrong with a compromise between personal freedom and some "reasonable" deg ...
Ft. Hood: An Avoidable Tragedy
April 07, 2014
Last week we saw yet another tragedy at Ft. Hood, Texas, as a distraught Iraq war veteran killed three of his fellow soldiers before killing himself. It is nearly five years after the last Ft. Hood shooting, where 13 people were killed. These tragedies are hear ...
Meme of Market Moves Is Powerful Directed History
April 05, 2014
I've explained before, but I'll try again, especially in light of the "big thud" that the market made on Friday. According to CNBC, "The Nasdaq narrowly avoid[ed] its worst one-day loss this year as momentum names got crushed for a second day. The Dow and S&P 5 ...
The Federal Reserve Has No Integrity
April 04, 2014
As we documented in previous articles, the gold price is driven down in the paper futures market by naked short selling by the Fed's dependent bullion banks. Some people have a hard time accepting this fact even though it is known that the big banks have manipu ...
Executive Agency Tyranny May Soon Be Much Worse … Or Better
April 03, 2014
On March 14th, Cato Institute ran an article entitled "SCOTUS Deferred to Executive Agencies. What Happened Next Will Infuriate You!" The article and surrounding documents go a long way toward explaining why executive agencies have acquired such mind-boggling p ...
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