[On his show] Rush Limbaugh was speaking about the “invisible hand” described by Adam Smith. It is not out of benevolence, Rush said, that your grocer sells you food. It is the grocer’s self-interest–his desire to feed his family–that motivates him. But, Rush quickly...
CULTURE
Secretariat Movie Trumps The Social Network in Depicting Capitalism
While Social Network holds capitalism in contempt, Secretariat exhibits a thorough grasp of capitalism in practice.
Atlas Shrugged: Who Runs Taggart Transcontinental?
“That’s who runs Taggart Transcontinental,” said the engineer; the respect in his voice was genuine. “That’s the Vice-President in Charge of Operation.”
Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right by Jennifer Burns
Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography. . . . Formerly we used to canonise our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarise them. —Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist” (1891) Ayn Rand (1905–1982) was a great novelist...
Don't Let Pressure Sabotage Your Thinking
Pressure can sabotage your thinking. By pressure, I mean an issue weighing on your mind as you try to concentrate on something else. Perhaps it's an imminent deadline or a desperate desire to do a fantastic job. Maybe it's a highly-charged emotional situation you...
Book Review of Andrew Bernstein’s “Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Moral Case for Individual Rights”
Andrew Bernstein’s Capitalism Unbound stunningly shows why and how the protection of individual rights gives rise to prosperity, and creates a nation of benevolently generous wealth holders.
Capitalism Unbound: The Truth About Capitalism
Andrew Bernstein’s Capitalism UnBound stunningly shows why and how the protection of individual rights gives rise to prosperity and creates a nation of benevolently generous wealth holders.
Playing Two Thinking Roles Can Ignite Your Thinking
Here's a surprisingly effective technique that can pry information loose from your brain and ignite your thinking when you're stalled: The "Q&A Technique." [1] Here's the technique: Write down a question you are puzzling over. ("How" and "Why"...
Motivation and Education
The basic principles of motivation are really quite simple: the teacher must identify the value of his course, design the curriculum accordingly, and name the value explicitly. If he does this properly, he can dispose of the pizzas, gold stars, and rulers, and enjoy the radiantly eager response of children who really grasp what they are learning and why.
The Inescapable Importance of Philosophy
Have you ever wondered why seemingly intelligent, articulate people cannot seem to come to a consensus on the important issues facing our nation today? Or even on what the issues should be? Whether it’s the economy, foreign policy, immigration, gay marriage or any...
Stuck in a Pattern? Break Out with an Experiment
It's easy to fall into a counterproductive pattern. Perhaps you often check email before settling down to work--and then reading the email wipes out your morning work time. Or three days in a row you put off an important call until the afternoon--then forget to make...
Find Yourself Digressing? Take a Quick Timeout
It happens to the best of us. You sit down to work on your top project, but soon you find yourself thinking about how to respond to a contentious email. Or after a solid hour's work, you step out for a quick break and get waylaid by a co-worker who "just needs five...
The Joy of Football
As half the nation eagerly awaits the kickoff of the Super Bowl, the other half looks on in wonderment at what could be so enthralling about grown men running up and down a field carrying an oblong ball. Football fans who cannot articulate why they feel such passion...
Three Good Things
Here's a daily practice I learned from Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness. Once each day, write down three good things that happened in the last 24 hours. You can write them before going to bed or first thing in the morning. You can...
What is the Meaning of New Year’s?
New Year’s Day is the most active-minded holiday, because it is the one where people evaluate their lives and plan and resolve to take action.
What to Resolve This New Year
This New Year’s, resolve to think about how to make your life better, not just once a year, but every day.
A Letter from a Child
Recent videos of American children in school singing songs of praise for Barack Obama were a little much, especially for those of us old enough to remember pictures of children singing the praises of dictators like Hitler, Stalin and Mao. But you don't need a dictator...
Books: Another Ayn Rand Novel for Our Times
A book for Americans.
Choosing The Right College
There is so much for high school seniors and their parents to know about colleges that they not only need to get a lot of information but also need to make sure it is the right kind of information. A number of college guides have useful information but, unfortunately,...
Multiculturalism is No Boon to Education, But an Agent of Anti-Western Ideology
By reshaping the curriculum, the purveyors of “diversity” in the classroom calculatedly seek to prevent students from grasping the objective value to human life of Western culture–a culture whose magnificent achievements have brought man from mud huts to moon landings.
Not Much: What Will They Learn in College?
When parents plunk down $20, $30, $40 and maybe $50 thousand this fall for a year's worth of college room, board and tuition, it might be relevant to ask: What will their children learn in return? The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) ask that question in...
TJ Walker’s Secret to Foolproof Presentations
Many books offer great advice. Some are so powerful they change your mind on issues you consider settled. Very few are so clear you can learn something about thinking just by reading them. TJ Walker's Secret to Foolproof Presentations is all three. At first...
Aiding Willpower
I think willpower draws on a kind of reservoir of emotional energy. Because it is so important to be able to call on willpower when I need it, I do several things to conserve that energy by reducing how often I need willpower: 1) I schedule my activity so it matches...
Vicious Academic Racists Take On “The Asian Menace” at The University of California
Ward Connerly, former University of California Regent, has an article, "Study, Study, Study -- A Bad Career Move" in the June 2, 2009 edition of Minding the Campus (www.mindingthecampus.com) that should raise any decent American's level of disgust for what's routinely...
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