STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
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May 29, 2015
Efforts to end prohibition of marijuana use by adults in the US continue to move forward at the state level. Legal sales are already underway in Colorado and Washington State with Oregon, Alaska and Washington DC not far behind. Some limited form of medical mar ...
May 28, 2015
If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, the National Football League must be something even lower. Those feel-good moments in the pregame are simply nothing more than your tax dollars at work. On the other hand, we all know the NFL is in business to mak ...
May 27, 2015
As taxes go, state-run lotteries seem like a good idea. No one forces you to pay, they don't infringe on your privacy, and the games raise money very efficiently. The Washington Post writer points out that lotteries prey disproportionately on the poor. People w ...
May 26, 2015
We are not at all surprised that the Bank of England or any other central bank would lie about its activities. Having their own documents prove they are lying is unusual, however. This might have been a major embarrassment for the BOE, but the financial media e ...
May 25, 2015
Tech industry giants say they are alarmed the federal government would demand back-door access to the encryption built into their products. Are they crying crocodile tears? Maybe, but the point is still a good one. Imagine if, instead of memory chips, we were t ...
May 22, 2015
Stories like this one aren't new to Daily Bell readers. We think often of the state's outrageous overreach in the War on Drugs. Yet this one strikes a different chord. The victim wasn't slumped in a black SUV cruising through the hood. He was on a passenger tra ...
May 21, 2015
Most limited-government conservatives usually prefer as much local autonomy as possible. When government action is necessary, it should occur at the lowest possible level. They resist centrally imposed, one-size-fits-all laws and policies. That's what they say. ...
May 20, 2015
U.S. currency in circulation is now about $11,000 per U.S. household. It was only $7,000 per household in 2008. Years of QE seem to have enlarged the inventory of both electronic blips and paper currency. "Where is all this currency?" asks Barron's. "The Fed ca ...
May 19, 2015
Globalization and international trade are in the headlines as Congress considers whether to give President Obama "Fast Track" negotiating authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Opponents say TPP is less about free trade than giving privileges to special i ...
May 18, 2015
More than 50 years of U.S. economic sanctions did not bring Cuba to its knees. Now, with normal relations in sight, we are learning that Cuba not only survived but may have surpassed the U.S. in some respects. If Cimavax truly works as well as the Cubans say, t ...
May 15, 2015
The pursuit of freedom means more than escaping the government. True freedom requires independence – the state of "not depending" on outside help. In an advanced economy, very few people can claim to be fully independent. We all depend on each other to meet v ...
May 14, 2015
If anyone needs another reason to hate the federal income tax and the agency that enforces it, this is a good one. The IRS bans marijuana sellers from deducting most business expenses, even though they are operating in full compliance with all state and local l ...
May 13, 2015
Evolutionary biologists tells us that humanity itself came from Africa. Now that continent may be leading the world back toward honest money. The EcoCash concept doesn't seem to offer a full escape from fractional reserve banking. The fact that accounts earn in ...
May 12, 2015
Faux transparency is a favorite tool of entrenched bureaucratic institutions. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's 1980s "Glasnost" is one example. The idea is to divert resistance into a box where it can vent its frustrations without forcing any real change. Ofte ...
May 11, 2015
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to free speech. The Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. Two centuries later, these rights are colliding. What will we see when the smoke clears? The Framers wisely placed ...
May 08, 2015
These two court cases in the same week illustrate the maddening distinctions and hurdles that stand between citizens and any semblance of privacy. The first case involved a criminal conviction made with the help of phone location data given to law enforcement b ...
May 07, 2015
Once again, NYT misses the point. Yes, Federal Reserve leaks are bad. Authorities should identify the leakers and deal with them. But here is the bigger question: Why is Federal Reserve information so valuable? Fed officials from Janet Yellen on down maintain t ...
May 06, 2015
In theory, profit-seeking colleges ought to deliver better service at a lower price than state-run institutions. Some probably do, but a tangled web of political influence and regulatory interference makes it hard to know. The Corinthian College's bankruptcy fi ...
May 05, 2015
If you've been dying to know whether the Chinese yuan was at fair value, you can finally rest easy. The IMF says it's almost there. This leaves another question, though. By what authority does the International Monetary Fund decide a currency's value is "fair" ...
May 04, 2015
Ask a traditional small-government conservative to define government's appropriate role, and most will list police as a necessary function. We need them to maintain order and stop evildoers. Yet history shows that societies around the globe managed to maintain ...
May 01, 2015
Politicians like Al Gore have made millions whipping crowds into a frenzy over "Climate Change," the newer term for what they once called "Global Warming." Whether or not one believes the world is in peril, fossil fuels are certainly not pleasant. No one enjoys ...
April 30, 2015
The program described in this article is one of the less-intrusive dragnets Edward Snowden exposed, but it is nonetheless unacceptable. Supposedly, it does not give the government the content of phone calls, only the "metadata" such as date, time, location, num ...
April 30, 2015
If you value privacy and want to encrypt your cellphone to keep hackers and other snoops from rifling through your personal business then you are aiding terrorists. At least that's what the top prosecutor in New York City said recently when discussing new encry ...
April 29, 2015
Publishers like nothing more than to attack censorship. They are right to do so; government attempts to suppress knowledge are always repugnant. Too often, however, the resistance turns into self-righteousness. The NYT leans in that direction when it reports th ...
April 28, 2015
Property rights are the cornerstone of a free society. They were already under attack long before John Deere started computerizing farm tractors. Usually the attackers are from some level of government, but large corporations are joining the fun. It's official: ...
April 27, 2015
We have to agree with Mr. Adler on one point. Replacing Administrator Leonhart with an animated Canadian Mountie would be a disservice to our country. If we must tolerate agencies like the DEA, they should at least have three dimensional, American management. I ...
April 27, 2015
A mother who uses medical marijuana to treat a chronic illness had her son taken from her recently after the child spoke up at his school about the health benefits of cannabis. On April 13, respected investigative journalist Ben Swann broke the heartbreaking st ...
April 24, 2015
Fractional reserve bankers love money. They don't love cash, in part because it reduces their ability to pyramid loan on top of loan and create new money from which they can extract interest. They have always had to tolerate its existence. Now, with the growing ...
April 23, 2015
Monsanto and the other genetically modified seed companies insist their products are safe. A substantial number of consumers have their doubts. The number is large enough to have enticed GMO-free food companies to step up their offerings. Alternatives are often ...
April 22, 2015
In our last commentary on police shootings (see Police Deserve No Sympathy Until the Blue Line Breaks), we said police officers are not different from ordinary citizens. This may not be true in Tulsa. At least one deputy sheriff there cannot hear gunshots fired ...
April 21, 2015
Frederic Bastiat supposedly said, "When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will." The quote is certainly true. Free trade between nation-states generally helps both sides prosper. It also reduces the chance of armed conflict. This is why libertarians like free ...
April 21, 2015
Parents around the United States are rallying in support of the mother and father of the so-called "free-range" kids, the ten-year-old and six-year-old brother and sister, who were dragged into the national spotlight this year due to the harassment the family h ...
April 20, 2015
For once, at least, President Obama put his finger on the serious consequences of an ill-conceived government policy. Just look what he told David Simon. The war on drugs is creating "harder criminals" who are unemployable and often offend again. "What we're do ...
April 17, 2015
Edward Snowden and other privacy advocates urge all citizens to encrypt all communications routinely. This, they say, will force the National Security Agency to abandon its "collect it all" practice. We don't know if that is true or not. We do know that Apple's ...
April 16, 2015
TIME invited several top police officials to weigh in on the "lesson" in the recent incident in South Carolina in which a police officer, who has since been charged with murder and is facing life in prison, shot an unarmed, 50-year-old man who was running away ...
April 15, 2015
And so it begins. Rand Paul is a "sideshow" whose "crankiness" suggests he is "still getting a handle" on running for the White House. NYT writes as if these are problems. The opposite is closer to the truth. Dr. Paul the Younger faces an uphill battle if he ho ...
April 14, 2015
Science, according to scientists, is about facts and evidence. These brave truth seekers prove their hypotheses with rigorous experimentation, and then share the newfound knowledge to make the world better. That's the theory. Reality is different. Scientists ar ...
April 13, 2015
Limited government advocates may find a certain emotional satisfaction in proposals like that of Rep. Brattin. If we must have programs like food stamps, let's at least attach some reasonable restrictions. Taxpayers shouldn't have to shower luxury items on thos ...
April 10, 2015
Immigration is one of those subjects you hope to avoid at holiday family gatherings. Most everyone has an opinion, many feel strongly about their opinion and few will even consider they might be wrong. Emotional and cultural baggage further complicate the subje ...
April 09, 2015
The argument over same-sex marriage overlooks a key question: Why does the State define who can and can't marry? Marriage was originally a religious concept in Western culture, during a time when the modern concept of Church and State as separate spheres was fu ...
April 08, 2015
Tiny Iceland, best known for its volcanos, seafood and tongue-twisting language, is thinking big. The government is apparently taking seriously a proposal that could shake the global banking system to its core. Daily Bell readers will quickly see the flaw in th ...
April 07, 2015
Both the U.S. and Israel conduct all manner of intelligence operations under a "plausible denial" doctrine. That means they will feign ignorance of the operation should it be exposed somehow. In other words, they will lie. American citizens would likely be alar ...
April 06, 2015
Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency allegedly invented by one "Satoshi Nakamoto," is starting to gain some traction. Some top online merchants now accept bitcoin as payment, banks are learning how to process payments and the Winklevoss twins plan to launch a fully lice ...
April 03, 2015
Any time you read the phrase "a bipartisan bill...," hide your guns and children. Partisan gridlock is the only thing that saves us from Washington's antics. We are in maximum danger when they start singing about "bipartisanship." To hear some members talk, all ...
April 02, 2015
If the US public were polled in depth about the loss of privacy that has taken place since 9/11, chances are there would be a significant percentage of people that would resist the trade-off. Likewise, if people were polled in depth about the globalized warfare ...
April 02, 2015
There are powerful forces in the US and abroad that will resist any consensus that links military service to depression and suicide. This study published yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry states bluntly suicide does not seem to be much enhanced by deployment in Afgh ...
April 01, 2015
Ben Bernanke was once among the most powerful men on the planet because of the monetary control he exercised as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Now he is not quite so powerful, but apparently he is prepared to be a good deal more informative. He has started a ...
April 01, 2015
What if you could get rid of the IRS? There are so many alternative forms of taxation that are likely preferable and simpler, one is certainly justified in asking: Why the IRS and its administration of progressive taxation? Certainly it is well known that initi ...
March 31, 2015
It is important to keep track of the war on terror and its damages. A big war creates immense antipathy among those subject to its destruction ... Trade suffers; blowback occurs. And for the US, such a war can be economically draining far beyond what is now bei ...
March 31, 2015
A big mainstream media meme is that when economic conditions worsen, people respond by seeking out Hitler-esque leaders who will express the frustration of the "people" via genocide, incipient warfare and the creation of a police state. Regardless of whether th ...
