STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS Showing 3001 - 3050 of 6556
General Rebellion and Media Choices
July 22, 2015
Retired generals frequently land jobs with Wall Street or defense contractors, through which they can convert their military knowledge into substantial income. At least one is going a different direction, though. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn appears uninterested in a ...
Pointless Law Punishes Puerto Rico
July 21, 2015
Don't feel bad if you had to look twice at the source of today's media excerpt. It's not every day the Washington Post reports a law outlived its original purpose. The Jones Act of 1920 was probably a bad idea in the first place, but it certainly serves no purp ...
Neocon Hypocrites and Christian Diplomacy
July 20, 2015
Rev. Franklin Graham may be a fine preacher and a decent man, but his incoherent view of the Iran nuclear agreement does not enhance his credibility. It does the opposite, exposing him as simply another neoconservative hypocrite. That Rev. Graham opposes the de ...
Introducing Citicoin, 'Equivalent to Bitcoin'
July 17, 2015
A few months ago we looked at Citigroup's apparent desire to abolish cash altogether. Now we learn they are actively working in that direction, using bitcoin's blockchain technology as a model. More shocking, however, is the news that Citigroup has an "Innovat ...
Federal Reserve Spies on France
July 16, 2015
New documents from WikiLeaks show the National Security Agency spies on French companies as well as its government. That's not especially surprising. What is surprising is seeing the Federal Reserve Board on the list of "supported elements" for whom the NSA spi ...
Feds Cry Wolf, Again
July 15, 2015
As Americans prepared to celebrate Independence Day, their government did its best to spoil the party with ominous terrorism warnings. No such attacks were even attempted, so far as we know. In the maniacal mind of FBI Director James Comey, the lack of attacks ...
Greece Finds Real Money
July 14, 2015
Greece is ahead of the economic curve. While the rest of the world is stuck with various state-sponsored paper currencies, Greece has a chance to start fresh. Unpayable debt will drive it from the Eurozone at some point. No paper currency can last forever, not ...
FBI Director Comey is a Maniac
July 13, 2015
When the successor to the chair of J. Edgar Hoover feels he must reassure the nation that he is not a maniac, we have strong evidence that he is probably a maniac. FBI Director James Comey may be a fine family man but he also wishes to "keep people safe" in way ...
The Upside of Grexit
July 10, 2015
The drama gripping Europe seems to have grown tiresome for the continent's leaders. They look intent on ending it one way or the other at summit meetings this weekend. Greece may leave the currency union, voluntarily or not. We hope they do. A "Grexit" would be ...
Insanity on the Thames
July 09, 2015
UK Prime Minister David Cameron is a seriously deluded man. First, he apparently believes Facebook and Twitter users currently have "absolute privacy" in their communications. That is nonsense. Second, Cameron believes this nonexistent absolute privacy is unsus ...
Discrimination Is the Fastest Road to Freedom
July 08, 2015
One reason freedom proponents make slow progress is that they promote only selective freedom. Some same-sex marriage advocates are proving the point right now. Fresh from their Supreme Court victory, they now want to bolster their own newfound freedom by taking ...
Greek Debt Was a Two-Way Deal
July 07, 2015
News stories about the Greek crisis constantly return to a familiar refrain. The country's politicians and citizens alike borrowed unwisely, spent too freely and now don't want to pay their debts. This impression isn't wrong, but it misses half the story. Loans ...
When War is the Only Option
July 06, 2015
The world might not need diplomats if it had no nation-states. Since we do, they serve the valuable function of lubricating relations between governments. They nevertheless represent governments, not citizens. Our excerpt today is from Chas Freeman, a retired U ...
Dignity and Respect in Blue
July 03, 2015
The curriculum in most police academies is heavy on firearms and self-defense techniques. This is necessary but not sufficient. Police need public cooperation for one simple reason: They are usually outnumbered. Top marksmanship will not help one officer contro ...
NSA: Visualize Everything
July 02, 2015
Do you remember those "Visualize World Peace" bumper stickers? They gave the National Security Agency an idea, apparently. Now the agency that hears and reads everything wants to see everything, too. This is interesting in several ways. For one, it shows the te ...
The Three Senses of Marriage
July 01, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to permit same-sex marriage nationwide has both winners and losers. One loser, at least so far, is clarity of thinking. People on all sides are discussing concepts without considering what they really mean. Let's try to bring s ...
Central Bank Lies & Consequences
June 30, 2015
Fractional reserve banking is intrinsically dishonest. Bankers promise depositors instant access to their money, even as they lend that same money to unrelated persons. The depositor agreement is a contract the bank knows it cannot possibly fulfill. This pyrami ...
They Must Be Controlled
June 29, 2015
In a 1968 Star Trek episode titled "The Gamesters of Triskelion," disembodied aliens abduct Captain Kirk and two of his crew for their own entertainment. They fit the humans with special collars that create enormous pain on command, thereby ensuring compliance. ...
Keep the Tinfoil Handy
June 26, 2015
Critics often deride those wary of government surveillance as paranoid tinfoil hat wearers. We're learning now that paranoia may be entirely appropriate. It turns out the FBI really is watching Americans from the sky. We know this because the FBI itself said so ...
Democracy and Baboons
June 25, 2015
After reading the quote above, our first thought was that baboons already have run for office and even won. This would explain legislative behavior in many democratic countries. Scientists missed the opportunity to study this, however, by focusing instead on fu ...
More Dangerous than ISIS?
June 24, 2015
During the Cold War, American soldiers learned to fear the Soviet Union's advanced weaponry and fanatical communist foot soldiers. Where did we get this fear? Our leaders instilled it in us. As it turned out, the fears were misplaced. We learned in the 1990s th ...
Attention Millennials: Daddy Warbucks Wants You!
June 23, 2015
Ron Fournier of National Journal knows "a better way to fight ISIS." Obviously, Pentagon planners should have consulted him months ago. He has just the ticket to solve their vexing challenge. What is this solution? Give more people "skin in a very dangerous gam ...
On Charleston, Fear and 9/11
June 22, 2015
In a literal sense, the word "tragedy" does not describe what happened in Charleston, South Carolina last week. Storms and earthquakes are tragic. No human summons these events and no human can stop them. Murder, on the other hand, is entirely human. It occurs ...
Peace at Last in the GMO War?
June 19, 2015
The war between those who oppose and embrace genetically modified food crops has almost no middle ground. Those who know what "GMO" means are enthusiastically for or against it. We explained back in April how The Free Market is Solving the GMO Problem. Consumer ...
U.S. Navy: Up to No Good?
June 18, 2015
We saw the Navy's "Global Force for Good" commercials on TV a few months ago, and thought them strange at the time. The service it portrayed bore no resemblance to reality. Instead of carrier-launched fighter jets pursuing terrorists, it showed earnest youngste ...
Top Leaker Invited to Bilderberg Insider Fest
June 17, 2015
The secretive Bilderberg group held its annual conclave at an Austrian mountain resort last weekend. As the Guardian article says, the event was private in every imaginable way. Invited guests only, Chatham House rules, everything off the record and certainly n ...
Stop Blaming Snowden, Start Questioning Obama
June 16, 2015
Newspapers once had journalistic standards, one of which was not to report events as factual without a primary source and a confirming second source. Those standards fell away long ago. The Sunday Times claims National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowd ...
Barron's Handicaps the GOP
June 15, 2015
The quadrennial American presidential slugfest is right around the corner. Our wish here at Chez Gastonne is that all the candidates would lose and the country proceed into the future confidently leaderless. Sadly, that is not one of the options. We took note o ...
Police, Pool Parties and Whiny Bureaucrats
June 12, 2015
News coverage of the McKinney police incident faded quickly once the out-of-control Cpl. Casebolt resigned. Most commentary has been on the racial dimension, but we are more interested in the growing disconnect between the American public and those who are supp ...
Janet Yellen's Crocodile Tears
June 11, 2015
That the Federal Reserve is an insular institution should surprise no one. Nor should the fact that it lets valuable information leak to the benefit of its friends. This time, however, members of Congress are taking an interest in the matter, and the Fed is not ...
The TPP is Not About Free Trade
June 10, 2015
This Reuters opinion article makes some odd claims about China and international trade. It ends by condemning the nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership. There are plenty of better reasons to oppose TPP. The author first blames economic interdependence for China's " ...
Hungry FBI Creating Fake Terrorists
June 09, 2015
The FBI has a problem. Not enough terrorists are plotting to attack the United States, so agents find they must manufacture more of them. The method appears to be working, too. Dozens of FBI-appointed terrorists now sit safely in prison and no longer threaten t ...
Daddy Warbucks Wins Again
June 08, 2015
Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi may be the most honest politician on the planet, at least judging by this one statement. His troops most certainly did "lose a lot of weapons." Let's add this up. Iraqi forces abandoned and/or lost some 2,300 armored Humvees, 40 M1A1 ...
Fishermen Flout Law, Save Lives
June 05, 2015
Government action is necessary, we are told, to solve thorny social problems and keep everyone safe. The Rohingya refugees prove the point wrong. One government drove them into desperation and exile, several other governments refused to help and humble citizens ...
USA Freedom and Obama's Doublespeak
June 04, 2015
Almost everything the president says about the USA Freedom Act is false. He does not at all "welcome" the law's passage. If Obama had his way, Congress would have never even considered this law because the National Security Agency's illegal activities would sti ...
Big Brother is Watching Closer Than You Think
June 03, 2015
There was a time in America when fear of government observation would get one accused of tinfoil-hat paranoia. Those days are gone. Thanks to Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers, we know Big Brother is watching. The only question is how close. The newest de ...
The Ominous Warning in Denny Hastert's Downfall
June 02, 2015
Former House Speaker Denny Hastert's indictment is remarkable for several reasons, not least being the way it exposes the U.S. government's inherent corruption. Why is it that former senators and representatives so often become wealthy? It is because they can d ...
War, American Style
June 01, 2015
Misty-eyed Americans who sing of "the rockets' red glare" miss the irony the rest of the world sees. All the evidence suggests we love nothing more than lobbing missiles at countries that resist our will. Daniel Larison, the writer quoted above, references this ...
Lollipops and Marshmallows: Another Reason for Cannabis Legalization
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 ...
Paid-for Patriotism in the NFL
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 ...
State-Run Lotteries: The Desperation Tax
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 ...
Central Bank Caught Lying
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 ...
Back Door Worse Than No Door
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 ...
American Gestapo
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 ...
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Texas Only Pretends to Be Conservative
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. ...
Where's All the (Fake) Money?
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 ...
Free Trade and the Real World
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 ...
Cuba Has a Cigar Cure
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 ...
Freedom From the Grid
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 ...
IRS Enlists in the War on Legal Marijuana
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 ...
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