EDITORIAL Showing 1651 - 1700 of 1951
Where Multiculturalism is OK
February 17, 2011
It is reported that France's, England's and Germany's leaders have issued an announcement claiming that multiculturalism is a failure. But are they right? Or perhaps it is more likely that implementing multiculturalism the way it has been tried in these and man ...
Holding One's Nose for Principles
February 16, 2011
One of the difficulties with standing on principle is that often one is defending them when they are practiced by bad people. Or when bad conduct is involved. In both kinds of cases one may have no sympathy at all for the specific but still finds it important t ...
Deception at the Fed
February 15, 2011
For the past three decades, the Federal Reserve has been given a dual mandate: keeping prices stable and maximizing employment. This policy relies not only on the fatal conceit of believing in the wisdom of supposed experts, but also on numerical chicanery. Rat ...
The Two Faces of Ben Bernanke
February 15, 2011
Based on his recent public comments, Fed Chairman Bernanke seems determined to give the U.S. dollar the reputation of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak: an unwanted relic of the past that everyone agrees must go, but stubbornly clings to a privileged position. The dollar i ...
Besmirching Libertarianism
February 09, 2011
Now that libertarianism has gotten some publicity in mainstream forums, those who are convinced of its merit have much work to do. This is because of the well publicized distortions of the position in prominent forums, especially by well credentialed academics ...
Our 30 Year Mistake
February 08, 2011
The events in Egypt of late have captured the attention of the world, as many thousands of Egyptians take to the streets both in opposition to and in favor of the current regime. We watch from a distance hoping that events do not spiral further into violence, w ...
Knowing Versus Imposing What's Ethical
February 08, 2011
Among those who champion human liberty – the sovereignty of every adult when it comes to managing one's own life – some hold that if one could know what good conduct amounts to, one would be authorized to impose it on others. Among those who thought this wa ...
Forcing Us To Do What We Choose Not To Do
February 07, 2011
Over the last couple of years many conservatives have argued against President Obama's health care program on the grounds that it unconstitutionally forces citizens to purchase something they may not want. Imposing this kind of force conduct, they have argued, ...
The Simple Truth About Gold Leverage Programs
February 03, 2011
A lot of people ride motorcycles, but there's a reason most don't try to be Evel Knievel. Sure, there's a big reward if you can land a jump over 14 school buses – but what if you don't? A new craze among our competitors is to push gold buyers into "leveraged ...
Democracy Wont Help Egypt
February 02, 2011
Even without being a Egyptologist I can say with reasonable certainty that it will not help to solve Egypt's problems to make it into an unlimited democracy. What we are likely to get is Lebanon with the heavy hand of Hamas in charge there. In Egypt it looks li ...
Bring Back, Bring Back, Oh Bring Back My Gold Bond To Me
February 01, 2011
"The mountains went into labor and gave birth - to a mouse! This ancient quotation could be cited to characterize the publication of the long-awaited Financial Crisis Inquiry Report on Thursday, January 27, commissioned by an earlier Congress. Another character ...
The Fed and Job Creation
February 01, 2011
Unemployment continues to plague our economy. In spite of constant claims that we have just turned the corner into recovery, the jobs reports remain grim with no real signs of improvement. While Keynesian economists and big government apologists scratch their h ...
Obama is a Socialist – A Crazy Thought?
January 29, 2011
Right after President Obama's state of the union address several Republicans, mainly of the Tea Party faction stated that he is a socialist. This isn't the first time the claim has been made. Indeed, based on his early schooling the idea that he may well be one ...
Government Regulations: Demeaning and Costly
January 26, 2011
Every time I am dealing with an organizations like the omnipresent TIAA-CREF - which seems to have a monopoly on handling retirements at colleges and universities across the country - I am put through a labyrinth of bureaucratic procedures. With each turn, of c ...
On Real Respect for the Constitution
January 25, 2011
I am pleased that the Constitution has received a lot of attention in recent weeks, thanks to the tea party movement. The 112th Congress kicked off with a reading of the Constitution on the floor of the House. It goes without saying that Members of Congress sho ...
The Insanity Defense Debate
January 24, 2011
The New York Times blog featured a debate recently, in the wake of the Tuscon massacre, among several people on the insanity defense. One of the debaters, Kent Scheidegger, wrote a comment that included a point that's often proposed but that needs some amendmen ...
Civil Discourse Revisited
January 22, 2011
We were having lunch and the topic of how to frame a friendly, productive holiday conversation about politics and such came up. I had been thinking about what role a host might play in upholding standards of civility and what one can do if things get a bit ugly ...
State Secession or Washington Debt Depression
January 20, 2011
Everyone with any intelligence in the US and around the world knows that there is no way for Washington to manage the tens of trillions in debt and unfunded liabilities short of ultimate repudiation or hyperinflation. Thanks to Wall Street bankers and the Anglo ...
China's Inflation Problem Looms Large
January 20, 2011
The global economy has become so unbalanced that even government ministers who would normally have trouble explaining supply or demand clearly recognize that something has to give. To a very large extent the distortions are caused by China's long-standing polic ...
Confessions of a Refi Junkie
January 20, 2011
No, I am not actually a junkie of any sort but I sometimes feel like it when I reflect upon my history of borrowing funds against the estimated value of my home. You see, I have been trying to encourage my and my children's various endeavors, just as many other ...
There Is No Business Like Bond Business
January 19, 2011
For some nine years I have been predicting that the economy is going to a recession morphing into a depression, using a purely theoretical argument. The essence of my argument is that the open market operations of the Fed cause a protracted decline in interest ...
On Gun Control and Violence
January 18, 2011
The terrible violence in Arizona last weekend prompted much national discussion on many issues. All Americans are united in their sympathies for the victims and their families. All wonder what could motivate such a horrible act. However, some have attempted to ...
Stupid Wager or Clever Prestidigitation?
January 18, 2011
"Heads – you win; tails – I lose." Such is the message the Fed sends to bond speculators. But why would the Fed offer such a stupid wager? Read on. The Fed is trying to bribe bond speculators with risk-free profits. That's how the Treasury/Fed check-kiting ...
Krugman's Incoherent Moral Stance
January 17, 2011
Finally Paul Krugman, Princeton University Nobel Laureate in economic science and columnist for The New York Times, has come clean about his "moral" position (TNYT, January 14, 2011). He has admitted that he doesn't believe that when you earn something, you own ...
An Extremist and Proud of It
January 13, 2011
Yes, I am that for sure, an extremist. I am totally against taxes, consider them extortion. I think all government regulations are vile, cases of prior restraint and thus unjust. I think a government has only the function assigned to it in the Declaration of In ...
Gold and Honey
January 12, 2011
Open letter to Thomas Hoenig, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Dear President Hoenig, On January 5, 2011, you were quoted on ABC NEWS as saying that "the gold standard is a very legitimate monetary system". The quotation went on: "We are not goin ...
It's a Massacre, Stupid
January 12, 2011
What happened in Tucson, AZ, was a massacre and not a tragedy. Perhaps some view this a pedantic detail but it isn't - words do have meaning and a tragedy, as anyone familiar with ancient Greek literature or a bit of Shakespeare will testify, takes place when b ...
Toward Sensible Monetary Policy
January 11, 2011
Last week the 112th Congress was sworn in. I am pleased that I will be chairing the Monetary Policy Subcommittee of the Financial Services Committee, which has oversight of the Federal Reserve. Obviously, this position will facilitate my efforts to ensure the F ...
What's the Matter With Money?
January 10, 2011
There is nothing new about all the badmouthing of money we witness so often in our culture and political environment. Not only do we find many of the literati railing against money, even while some of them eagerly urge their agents to negotiate hefty deals for ...
Somerset Maugham & I
January 07, 2011
My most enjoyable and rewarding reading time has been with W. Somerset Maugham. Even the works that annoy me are a pleasure to read, not to mention the many very entertaining books, short stories and essays he has penned that are dear to me. What it is about M ...
How to Use the Constitution
January 06, 2011
Many in the just seated House of Representatives have been clamoring for a return to the Constitution. This is what appears to underlie to planned challenge to Obama care, the massive piece of legislation that President Obama has been eager to make a part of th ...
Recipe for a Successful 2011
January 05, 2011
The year 2011 brings in a host of opportunities and challenges to America. Will we accelerate toward economic insolvency by continuing the policies that have created this crisis, or will a new Congress elected on the energy of the Tea Party movement find the co ...
Forever Stamps Tell Us Much
January 04, 2011
The United States Postal Service announced this week that all future first class postage stamps sold will be the so-called "forever stamps" that have no face value but are guaranteed to cover the cost of mailing a first class letter, regardless of how high that ...
Reexamining Democracy
January 04, 2011
Over the last several decades of American political life the idea of liberty has taken a back seat to that of democracy. Liberty involves human beings governing themselves, being sovereign citizens, while democracy is a method by which decisions are reached wit ...
Column on a Fruitful Idea About Morality
January 01, 2011
As someone who often teaches the topic of ethics or morality in colleges and universities, I have noticed that most of my beginning students entertain conflicting positions about the subject. They see it either as a one-size-fits-all system of guidelines, where ...
The Struggle – the Long Arc of Advances in Human Liberty
December 30, 2010
Here is some good news: The march of liberty has so far proven to be generally unstoppable. Over the span of human history there have been periods during which hardly any sign of respect for human liberty had been in evidence. In other eras the globe has seen a ...
Social Security Is Not 'Insurance'
December 28, 2010
Perhaps the biggest media story of 2010 was the influence of Tea Party voters on the congressional landscape. The new Congress comes to Capitol Hill with a mandate to end profligate spending and restore fiscal sanity, we are told. But when the House and Senate ...
One Swallow
December 27, 2010
Those who have paid a bit of attention to my writings on public policy probably know that I have always been an opponent of preemptive petty tyrannies of government regulations, the sort that force people to follow certain standards of professional conduct, inc ...
The Rise of Brownianism
December 25, 2010
Ellen Brown has run a long-term campaign arguing that nations themselves ought to print money rather than third-party central banks. She even wrote a book about it called "Web of Debt." And she's making progress. There is legislation now enshrining her point of ...
Down Argentine Way
December 22, 2010
There are many ominous parallels between Argentina and the U.S. and the question often asked is can America avoid the economic consequences that Argentina suffered from a fascist government combined with government debt and currency collapse? I believe the answ ...
Distorting the Tax Policy Debate
December 21, 2010
George Orwell warned us about the use of "meaningless words" in politics, words that are endlessly repeated by sloganeering politicians until they have no meaning at all. Meaningless words certainly were on display during last week's congressional debate over t ...
Krugman's Trashy Debating Style
December 21, 2010
Looks like critics of the free market are at their whit's end. At least one of the most prominent of them clearly appears to be. Princeton economics professor and columnist for The New York Times Paul Krugman has always been discourteous to those with whom he d ...
America Divided
December 18, 2010
For all its existence America has been torn between two political positions. Originally the two were represented, mostly, by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, although neither was a simple partisan of the positions at issue here. Hamilton had been a supp ...
A Stupid Analogy
December 15, 2010
Now that Judge Henry E. Hudson of the Virginia district court ruled that the Obama health care measure violates the U.S. Constitution by forcing people to make purchases they may not want to make, there are innumerable sophists who want to refute the rationale ...
Audit the Fed in 2011
December 14, 2010
Since the announcement last week that I will chair the congressional subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve, the media response has been overwhelming. The groundswell of opposition to Fed actions among ordinary citizens is reflected not only in the rhet ...
WikiLeaks – Hype, Propaganda or Revolution?
December 13, 2010
The media is full of hype about Mr. Julian Assange, the man behind WikiLeaks. The story might be considered trivial at first. However, the hoopla is interesting to observe, highly intriguing and, in my view, well worth analyzing and second-guessing a bit. The b ...
Disgusting Rich Bashing
December 13, 2010
There are many welcome developments in America in our time, mainly in the media. Certainly Judge Andrew Napolitano's and John Stossel's Fox Business Network TV programs are quite unprecedented in their principled libertarian commentaries. The way Reason Magazin ...
America's Salvation
December 11, 2010
Anybody with a lick of sense realizes there's no difference anymore between the Democrats and Republicans. Both preach big dictatorial government to the people, and they do so relentlessly. Thus many Americans now realize that we need to open up the process and ...
Law & Our Democracy
December 11, 2010
When as a 14 year old I lived in Budapest under the rule of the "democratic republic" of Hungary – which was but a ruse disguising sheer Soviet style power – my family repeatedly violated "the law," which is to say we defied the rules the communist – in f ...
Focus on the Policy, Not WikiLeaks
December 07, 2010
We may never know the whole story behind the recent publication of sensitive U.S. government documents by the Wikileaks organization, but we certainly can draw some important conclusions from the reaction of so many in government and media. At its core, the Wik ...
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