Archive | July, 2002

For years, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer was noteworthy for being both exceptionally witty and consistently wrong. Times have changed. The newsletter, edited by James Grant, who has written wonderful books on such topics as the life of Bernard Baruch and the history of credit in America, is now both witty and right. Or as Grant [...]

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Cleveland school voucher case, Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris, that taxpayer funds that go to parents who might use the money to enroll their children in religious schools was constitutional. One need not be a rocket scientist to understand why. The Constitution’s First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law [...]

While much attention has been focused on the trial of American Taliban John Walker Lindh, another trial halfway around the world may be more relevant to our own future. This was the trial in Pakistan of terrorists who killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The killers were convicted and sentenced to death, after which [...]

While Washington buzzes over President Bush’s homeland security plan to secure America’s borders, untold numbers of foreigners continue to pour into our country illegally through limitless unsecured cracks and crevices. Joining the ranks of the estimated 9 million to 11 million illegal aliens already in the United States — most of whom Immigration and Naturalization [...]

One of the latest in the seemingly endless rounds of alarming statistics is that one out of 12 American children has some form of disability. With all the things that are supposedly getting worse, you have to wonder how our life expectancy keeps increasing. A cynic might even wonder if the increasing availability of money [...]

You will often hear experts in the media — particularly psychologists and the like — use the phrase, “Society tells us …” For example: “Society tells us that women should look perfect all the time.” Or: “Society tells us that men can’t be vulnerable.” Or: “Society tells us that old people should not be sexual.” [...]

Are American corporations being run by crooks in pinstripe suits? According to Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, “infectious greed” is to blame for the scandals engulfing firms like Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing. On this view, which virtually all public voices now embrace, businessmen are a breed of predators, eager to lie, cheat and steal [...]

Newsflash: Hauling CEOs Away in Manacles Makes Markets Soar! This is not a headline from The Onion, the satirical weekly newspaper that prints fake news stories. No, it is the story that was repeated last week by most of the nation’s supposedly serious financial reporters. The opening line of a front-page piece in USA Today [...]

Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories has developed an injectable antibiotic called Tigecycline. It can be used to treat resistant pathogens — bacteria that are immune to standard antibiotics. However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has changed the rules for measuring drug efficiency in trials of antibiotics. It has ordered Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories to double the number of patients [...]

A recent front-page story in The New York Times was headlined: “In Ecuador’s Banana Fields, Child Labor is Key to Profits.” This is part of an ongoing orgy of indignation by the intelligentsia at low-paid labor in the Third World. The question they never ask is: Compared to what? But people for whom indignation is [...]