Why the Holocaust Can Happen Again

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are urged to memorialize the millions who suffered and died in the Nazi concentration camps. The purpose is not merely to pay tribute to the victims, but to learn what made an evil of such magnitude possible–and to prevent it...

War Crimes Trials

Baghdad has fallen. The war is nearly over now and the time will soon come to assess the actions of Iraq’s former leaders. Coalition forces reportedly carry a “deck of cards” with the pictures of 55 Iraqi leaders of the regime and orders to pursue,...

Fund-amentals

Mutual funds, which were invented roughly 80 years ago and have boomed in the past decade, are a triumph of financial democracy. They give small investors access to the sort of money managers who once worked exclusively for the wealthy. Funds also offer broad...

Cuba’s Cruel Joke

“Can I have your bones?” the old woman asked my eight-year-old daughter, pointing to the gnawed remains of the chicken leg that had been her lunch. Seeing that my daughter was perplexed, the old woman displayed a box of chicken bones that she had collected...

Russia’s Flat-Tax Miracle

It’s never fun to admit failure. But Russia’s 13 percent flat tax forces me to confess a certain degree of incompetence. For 10 years, I’ve been working in Washington to replace our convoluted tax code with a simple and fair flat tax. But as every...

Rules to Live By

Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, now HealthSouth. Will the scandals ever end? Frankly, no. There are more than 6,000 companies listed on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange alone, and a few always will be led by unscrupulous managers who lie, cheat and steal. The U.S. has...

Not in My Name, cont’d.

This came in from St. Andrews, Scotland: Dear Right Wing Reactionary,I hope that someday you, or your family, will have the oppurtunity to live in poverty without healthcare, social security or welfare. Then, possibly, you could experience the utter dispare and...

Without Selfish Individuals, Nothing

“Deny self and build community”–the mantra of our age. Preachers praise it. Professors teach it. Many feel tingly at the mere thought of it. But a community is not a god; it’s simply a number of individuals. As economist Ludwig von Mises...