Dependence Day
The Fourth of July week brought unwelcome birthday gifts to the United States in the form of poor domestic jobs data and similarly gloomy information from other major economies. Amidst the heat and festivities, it has become difficult to deny that the economy is...A Letter to Cuba’s American Prisoner
It gives me great sadness to say that inside the Communist boot that now tramples upon your dignity is the foot of the American president, Barack Obama.
Talk to the Houston Property Rights Association
In 2009, I delivered a talk to the Houston Property Rights Association. I had previously spoken to that group in 1993 during the debate over Houston’s last attempt to implement zoning. In my earlier talk, I cautioned that we might win the referendum on zoning, but...Doctors for Socialized Medicine
This is perhaps my favorite line from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged with regard to doctors who support, or tolerate, socialized medicine: “Let them discover, in the operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man they...Tax Increases (or Cuts) Not the Real Issue
According to the Congressional Budget Office’s figures, extending the Bush tax rates will only increase the deficit by 4 percent. Actually, critics of the way the CBO figures this out are saying the 4 percent number is too high. They charge that the CBO does not take...Reply to Salerno on Freedom in Banking
Oh no: I’ve gone and punched the 100-percent wasp’s nest again, and the wasps are responding predictably. Among them Joe Salerno stands out like a hornet among gall wasps, for Joe is an outstanding historian of monetary thought, and no mean monetary...Is Buying for Others the Secret to Consistent Happiness?
Freedom (our own and that of others) to choose values, including the level of wealth to which we aspire and what we want to do with it, is the first requirement of happiness. Any proposals for limiting our freedom—by imposing limits on income or a duty to share it with others—should be rejected as anti-human and anti-happiness.
