EDITORIAL Showing 1901 - 1950 of 1951
Bizarre Spending Habits
March 03, 2010
Last week I had the opportunity to bring up spending and transparency in two important hearings. On Wednesday I questioned Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on some highly questionable uses of funds at the Federal Reserve, and on Thursday I asked Secretary ...
What Is the Public Interest?
March 02, 2010
The moral system these avid fans of statism are peddling is the doctrine of service to the public interest. You know, "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country" and similar calls to have us all abandon the Declaration's idea ...
Going to the Roots of the Problem: Part 4 of 4
February 27, 2010
Therefore, if Americans want a stable and prosperous economy, they want a free economy (that is, one based on the free market). If Americans want a free economy, they want "a free State", that being the only kind of political system that will support and defend ...
Government Stimulus, One Year Later
February 27, 2010
Last week marked the one year anniversary of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, or the stimulus bill, passing into law. While the debate over its success has been focused on whether or not it is stimulating the economy and on various questionable uses ...
How About Them Philosophical Differences?
February 27, 2010
President Obama and others at the summit Thursday (2/25/10) kept talking about philosophical difference between his team and the Republicans but what did they have in mind? By "philosophical" most mean "basic," or "fundamental." Possibly "systemic" could also b ...
Going to the Roots of the Problem: Part 3 of 4
February 26, 2010
Even without much expenditure of electronic soap for their "brainwashing" by the Armed Forces' psy-ops contingents, the American people in their anonymous millions would likely accept these turns of events, and the "official" explanations for them, because by t ...
Going to the Roots of the Problem: Part 2 of 4
February 25, 2010
In light of the self-evident dangers it poses to Americans' constitutional liberties, a nationwide network of police agencies centrally controlled from Washington, D.C., is bad enough. For if such a network is not itself a "national police state", it certainly ...
Peddling the Corruption of Liberty
February 25, 2010
Ever since the idea of individual liberty has achieved some measure of credibility over the world, those who would be unseated by its limited triumph had to find some way to discredit it or trump it somehow. One way was to re-christen servitude, to make it appe ...
Going to the Roots of the Problem: Part 1 of 4
February 24, 2010
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, a certain nation was one of the richest countries in the world. [World War II] had left it a creditor nation; it was owed * * * billion[s of] dollars by Britain alone. The derelict state of the European economies gave [th ...
Are U.S. Taxpayers Bailing Out Greece?
February 20, 2010
Last week we were reminded that ours is not the only country suffering from severe economic turmoil. The Greek government is the latest to come close to default on their massive public debt. Greece has insufficient funds in their treasury to make even the minim ...
Tiger Woods Dishonored Himself
February 20, 2010
So Tiger Woods apologized for his "selfish behavior." Of course, what he did was to dishonor himself, his human self that is, not benefit it at all. Indeed, this allegedly selfish conduct of Mr. Woods has produced a few hours of sensual pleasure at the expense ...
Are All of Us Always Selfish?
February 18, 2010
The idea that everyone is always acting selfishly comes from Thomas Hobbes, mostly, though others have voiced it too. For Hobbes we are all moved by passions, such as for power or wealth or such, and this is merely the human version of the way matter behaves in ...
More Spending Is Always the Answer
February 13, 2010
Last week, the House approved another increase in the national debt ceiling. This means the government can borrow $1.9 trillion more to stay afloat and avoid default. It has been little more than a year since the last debt limit increase, and graphs showing the ...
Oh, That Egalitarian Feeling!
February 13, 2010
If I recall this right, the prominent philosopher and legal theorist, Martha Nussbaum of the University of Chicago (where she is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics), has argued that while it is true that full human equality is no ...
Spending Freeze Not Likely
February 06, 2010
Last week politicians in Washington made a few things clear about how they really feel about the state of the union. First, they are beginning to hear the growing discontent with the size and scope of government and the broken promises that keep piling up. Cert ...
Are Corporations Persons?
February 06, 2010
Actually, no one thinks corporations are persons but some do believe they are groups of persons. No one thinks orchestras, or football teams or universities are persons but many do think they are variously configured people. If this is so, then they, as groups ...
Legalize Competing Currencies
January 30, 2010
Much has been made recently about the supposed economic recovery. A few blips in a few statistics and many believe our troubles are all over. Of course, they have to redefine recovery as "jobless" to account for the lack of improvement on Main Street. But the b ...
Why the First Amendment?
January 30, 2010
It has puzzled me for some time why campaign contribution is considered a First Amendment constitutional issue. If I write out a check to some candidate, I am not talking, writing an essay, carrying some poster in a parade or anything that could be construed as ...
The Address Obama Should Have Given – For a Change to Freedom
January 29, 2010
In the face of the President Obama's determination to push for more "change" down the path of expanding political paternalism, one imagines what he might have said in the State of the Union address if he had chosen to pro pose the type of change that really wou ...
Choice and Rights
January 28, 2010
It's about who is to choose! Our rights identify the realm of our choices, where we and not others get to decide about how things go. When rights are violated, the violator deprives the rights holder of his or her proper, morally justified authority to chose. S ...
Tipping the Scales for Liberty
January 23, 2010
It has been my experience that people who take politics seriously tend to want to have their idea of a good or just system of laws fully implemented. Yet these people aren't ignorant about the poor prospects of achieving their goal. Unless a society is being ru ...
Government Is Too Big to Succeed
January 20, 2010
The Pecora Commission was stacked with big government sympathizers who blamed the free market and the gold standard without question, and without any consideration of government interference in the economy. This panel is no different. Never will they contemplat ...
Do We Need More Guilt?
January 20, 2010
The idea that just because there are other persons who are disabled or lacking in what they would want, no one may take pleasure in what he or she does have, may have a noble ring to it but it is complete folly. It is contrary to the very point of feeling sorry ...
Why the Fed Likes Independence
January 16, 2010
Last week it was revealed that when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, he urged AIG officials not to disclose to the Securities Exchange Commission relevant details of agreements with banks to bail out Goldman Sachs. A ...
Real Economic Reform for a Hurting Haiti
January 15, 2010
Our televisions screens have been full of those tragic pictures of the devastation and human hardship that has been caused by the earthquake in Caribbean country of Haiti. Governments and private relief agencies are mustering their efforts to bring assistance t ...
Economic Aspects of the Pension Problem (Part 2): Productivity Revisited
January 13, 2010
In Part One I discussed the clear and present danger to pension rights: deflation as manifested by the interest rates structure that has been falling for almost thirty years, while most observers still think that the real danger is inflation. In this concluding ...
Euthanasia of the Pension Funds (Part 1)
January 12, 2010
In 1950 Mises looked at the pension problem from the point of view of the shrinking purchasing power of the dollar, a consequence of what he called the deliberate policy of currency debasement by the U.S. government. In 1950 a pension of $100 per month was a su ...
Market Interest Rates Need to Tell the Truth, or Why Federal Reserve Policy Tells Lies
January 09, 2010
Arguing that there was no reason to fear significant price inflation for the foreseeable future, the Open Market Committee also told that it was continuing to inject more Federal Reserve-created money into the financial markets as it finishes buying up by the e ...
Keynesianism Delivers a Decade of Zero
January 04, 2010
This past week we celebrated the end of what most people agree was a decade best forgotten. New York Times columnist and leading Keynesian economist Paul Krugman called it the Big Zero in a recent column. He wrote that "there was a whole lot of nothing going on ...
On Uniting the Country
January 04, 2010
On January 3rd, just after Meet the Press, NBC-TV broadcast a radio address by President Obama and while I have become nearly completely pessimistic, even cynical, about expecting anything uplifting from politicians these days -- I think there could be some and ...
GATA Sues Federal Reserve to Disclose Gold Market Intervention Records
January 02, 2010
The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. today (Dec. 30th, 2009) brought suit against the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, seeking a court order for disclosure of the central bank's records of its surreptitious market intervention to suppress the monetary metal's p ...
Rights Are to Act Freely
January 02, 2010
I do not have a right to my car but I do have a right to buy, keep, trade and otherwise act in relation to my car. Rights are what define our range of free actions. In some cases the right to act garners us huge wealth, in others, fame, and in yet others it wil ...
Healthcare Reform Is a Lump of Coal
December 27, 2009
Last week on Christmas Eve, after many backroom deals were made, the Senate passed the healthcare reform bill with a strictly partisan vote. I was pleased that my colleagues in the GOP are on the right side of this bill. Although this vote was a major step in h ...
Dreaming of a Gold Christmas
December 27, 2009
Bing Crosby dreamt of a White Christmas. Elvis Presley lamented about his Blue Christmas. This year, most Americans faced a Red Christmas, plagued by massive credit card, household and government debt. It has been a year of unprecedented public spending based o ...
The Myth of Surplus Wealth
December 24, 2009
Over the last couple of decades a colleague from a famous university has challenged me about my view that everyone has the unalienable right to private property. Now this position, derived from such sources as John Locke, the American Founders, Ayn Rand, and ma ...
The Fed Is a Fascist Cartel
December 22, 2009
No one in the freedom movement today disputes that the Federal Reserve is the source of many of our economic woes. Where disagreement arises is in defining the precise nature of the Fed and the source of its capacity to create the harm it does. Many who support ...
Iran Sanctions Are Precursor to War
December 22, 2009
Last week the House overwhelmingly approved a measure to put a new round of sanctions on Iran. If this measure passes the Senate, the United States could no longer do business with anyone who sold refined petroleum products to Iran or helped them develop their ...
The Fed's Money Monopoly
December 14, 2009
Because of legal tender laws that force acceptance of the dollar, the Fed has absolute power over the currency. This absolute power is leading to the absolute corruption of our currency. The money supply has doubled in the last year or so, which is extremely da ...
Who Wants War?
December 11, 2009
We now find ourselves in another foreign policy quagmire with little hope of victory, and not even a definition of victory. Eisenhower said that only an alert and informed electorate could keep these war racketeering pressures at bay. He was right, and the key ...
No More Minarets in Switzerland
December 07, 2009
In a national initiative that was voted on last Sunday, Swiss voting citizens banned any new minarets from being built in Switzerland. The international media´s outcry has been prompt and loud. And, a lot of Muslims in Switzerland and abroad are upset. They ...
America's Return to a Road to Serfdom?
December 03, 2009
We are dangerously returning to "the road to serfdom" that free market, Austrian economist and Nobel Laureate, Friedrich A. Hayek, warned about in a book with that title that was originally published in 1944. A spider's web of regulations, controls, and command ...
Healthcare Freedom or Healthcare Bureaucracy?
December 01, 2009
The U.S. Preventive Task Force caused quite a stir recently when they revised their recommendations on the frequency and age for women to get mammograms. Many have speculated on the timing for this government-funded report, with the Senate vote on health care l ...
Banking on Those Very Few Nuggets of Certainty
November 30, 2009
Uncertainty, to some degree, always has been and always will be a constant in the realm of wealth management. However, as we proceed further along this path of ‘Easy Money´ and the growing power of central government that, per default, goes with it, we ...
The True Meaning of Thanksgiving: The Birth of Private Enterprise in America
November 25, 2009
This time of the year, whether in good economic times or bad, is when Americans gather with their families and friends and enjoy a Thanksgiving meal together. It marks a remembrance of those early Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the uncharted ocean from Europe to m ...
Fed Faces Loss of Liberty
November 20, 2009
In the Fall of last year, Congress was persuaded' as a matter of urgency to vote $700,000,000,000 for the Troubled Asset Recovery Program, or TARP. It was the largest money vote in history. Now, Congress is concerned that TARP money has been misspent and that t ...
The Inescapable Law of Equilibrium
November 19, 2009
In nature just as in our personal lives, the principle of equilibrium is paramount. It permeates pretty much everything we know and do. All matters are drawn to equilibrium: the farther things move away from the state of equilibrium, the greater the forces are ...
Quick Fixes and Economic Fallacies
November 12, 2009
Economists who favor governmental intervention in economic activity appear on television talk-shows and on the opinion-editorial pages of the nation's newspapers to offer their insights on why "the free market" has failed once again – and why only wise govern ...
Investor Risk Appetite at New Highs – While the Markets Are Going Nowhere
November 05, 2009
In America, and most other western nations alike, withdrawing from the current mode of government bailouts and spending will be difficult. The bankruptcy of CIT should drive this point home decisively. Another USD 2.3 Billion of taxpayer money has gone into CIT ...
John Stuart Mill and the Dangers to LIberty
October 29, 2009
This year marks the 150th anniversary of John Stuart Mill's famous essay "On Liberty." Originally published in 1859, it remains one of the most enduring and powerful defenses of individual liberty ever penned. Both advocates and enemies of personal freedom have ...
If the Banks Own All the Gold, Why Would We Want a Gold-Backed Money System?
October 21, 2009
One of the most entrenched myths of our modern day is the assumption that (1) the bankers own all the gold and (2) therefore, the concept of a gold-backed money system is a very bad idea, because it would give them even more power than they now have. This view ...
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