Welch’s proper answer to his critics should have been this: “I earned the benefits through decades of hard and successful work. I am proud of what I earned, and I intend to keep it.”
MARKETS
The War on Capital — Not Terrorism
Just as they’ve blurred the distinction between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion, OECD officials have tried to blur the distinction between money-laundering and tax havens — even though the latter involves moving illegally-gained money above-ground, from the “underground economy” while tax avoidance involves legally moving legally-made money to jurisdictions with the lowest tax rates.
Alan Greenspan: Ayn Rand’s Failed Student
As legend has it, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was once a member of Ayn Rand’s 1960’s salon. He was an invited guest at Rand’s apartment and apparently was close enough to have read her epic Atlas Shrugged as it came off her typewriter....
“Open Space” = Housing Ban
A black man waiting at a bus stop called to me as I was bicycling down the street: “You’re the first black man I have seen over here in a long time.” “It will be a long time before you see the next one,” I said, and we both laughed. In a...
A Letter to the Department of Justice Concerning the Microsoft Antitrust Case
I’m writing to oppose the antitrust case against Microsoft. Antitrust contradicts the free enterprise system and is a violation of the rights of business owners, their stockholders and consumers. No one is or ever has been forced to buy Microsoft products. And...
WorldCom as Piker: Profit Inflation by the U.S. Government
News reports now indicate that WorldCom’s overstatement of its profits in the last few years may exceed the $3.8 billion initially reported, perhaps by as much as an additional $3.3 billion, maybe even more. But whatever the ultimate figure may be—$7.1 billion...
The Stock Market, Profits, and Credit Expansion
The actual nature and consequences of the profit motive in a free market, an explanation of how profits are profoundly distorted by forcible government interference in the form of inflation and credit expansion, in ways that directly explain both the stock market boom of recent years and today’s stock market bust.
Enron: Congressional Hysteria Will Not Make Every Businessman Honest
What is needed is a new moral philosophy and proper anti-fraud laws
Bear Market Performers
America’s stock market has lost a fifth of its value since mid-March, and shares in other countries haven’t done much better. But on Wednesday, July 17, while the Dow Jones industrial average was falling 283 points, 87 stocks on the three major U.S....
How History Repeats Itself: The IBM Antitrust Case of 1972
All Antitrust laws should be repealed, freeing every business to grow as big as ability, competence, and economic competitiveness will allow.
Principles and Policy: Will Bush Trip Over Pears?
Once the Bush administration abandoned the principles of free trade by imposing punitive tariffs on imported steel, it was only a matter of time before other industries sought government redress for their own failure to compete successfully. Case in point: Pears....
Capitalism Without Capital
“There is no capitalism without conscience. There is no wealth without character,” President Bush told Wall Street yesterday. True. But if business owners are not smart enough to see that it’s in their own economic self-interest to be honest with...
The Economics and Politics of “Affordable Housing” in California
While Senator Barbara Boxer is trying to get the federal government to declare more than two million acres in California off-limits to development, California’s other Senator, Diane Feinstein, has already brokered a deal that takes 16,500 acres off-limits....
An Ancient Fallacy: Price Controls
When Hawaii recently passed a law controlling how high the price of gasoline can go in that state, it was the first law controlling the price of gasoline since 1981, when President Ronald Reagan ended federal control over oil prices. What was unusual about the...
Microsoft’s Nose, Technology’s Face
When future policymakers want to understand the law and economics surrounding one of the most watched antitrust cases in history, they will look to “Microsoft, Antitrust and the New Economy,” a recent compilation of essays published by the Milken...
A is Non-A: Barbara Boxer’s World of Development Restriction and “Affordable Housing”
Politics, according to an old adage, is “the art of the possible.” But, during election years especially, politics has increasingly become the art of the impossible. What politicians promise to all the various groups adds up to more than anyone can...
An Old “New Vision” for “Affordable Housing”
Despite the fanfare of a televised speech at the National Press Club in Washington, a very old and hackneyed set of proposals was unveiled as a “new vision” for the creation of “affordable housing.” The speech was by Richard Ravitch,...
Microsoft’s Crimes Against Humanity: The Wild West World of Antitrust Litigation
A divided Iowa Supreme Court last week reinstated a class action lawsuit against Microsoft brought by Joe Comes on behalf of himself and his fellow Iowans who purchased computers that came pre-installed with Windows 98. As end-user licensees of the operating system,...
The History and Nature of Capitalism According to Microsoft’s Encarta
Most politicians and economists do not recognize capitalism’s crucial characteristic. Given the state of the world today it’s easy to see why. In his widely acclaimed speech of September 20, 2001, President Bush said, “Terrorists attacked a symbol of...
FTC Consent Agreement Against NAPA Valley Doctors is Totalitarian “Justice”
The State of California, like every other state in the Union, has created a legal monopoly within the medical profession that is restricted to only those individuals who are licensed by the states to practice medicine within their jurisdictions.
Ken Iverson: Proof that Ayn Rand’s Heroes Exist
Many Objectivists read the book American Steel about Ken Iverson’s amazing corporate leadership in developing new technology for steel producers when Big Steel was floundering under old ideas and crippling unions. Dr. Edwin Locke also made many mentions of him,...
Nobel Prize for Economics Rewards Voodoo and Not Science, Part 2
In The New York Times of October 11th , right next to the article on the latest Nobel Prize winners in economics, is another titled Expansive Role for Greenspan Brings Out Critics of Fed’s Chief. The article recounts how Alan Greenspan has been called upon (and...
Nobel Prize for Economics Rewards Voodoo and Not Science, Part 1
The economic and foreign policies of governments — for good or ill — exert a dramatic influence on investors’ portfolios. If that isn’t obvious by now, given the policies of the past two years, it will never be so. In economic policy...
It’s Time for Congress to Re-evaluate Antitrust
The following written testimony was submitted to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary for its hearings on the proposed Microsoft antitrust settlement. On behalf of the Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism, I respectfully submit my testimony to the US Senate...
Less Government Regulation and More Laissez-faire Required to Prevent Further ‘Enron’ Scandals
An unregulated free market provides the environment in which auditors who differentiate on a reputation for quality and useful disclosures could add value to their business, and their customers’.
Modern Keynesian Macroeconomics — An Assault on the Human Mind
Nearly half a century ago the popular economist John Maynard Keynes wrote, “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air,...
Economics of Investing: Hypothesizing about the Efficient Markets Hypothesis
Over the past couple of years, events like the Internet and more recently, the Enron and Global Crossing debacles, have spurred people to reconsider the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, “EMH.” For those unfamiliar with EMH, here’s a brief textbook...
OPEC, Oil, and Energy Economics 101
We are all familiar with pundits from all corners decrying our dependence on foreign oil. Before the oil embargo in the 70’s and subsequent attempts to wean ourselves from OPEC, we were importing about 25% of our oil and now we are importing over 50%. This is...
The “Rent Control” Housing Farce: Part II
Too many people who talk about a lack of “affordable housing” seem to think that this is something the government must build or subsidize. It never seems to occur to them that government activity is itself one of the biggest reasons for housing being...
The “Rent Control” Housing Farce: Part I
A RECENTLY published housing study says: “San Francisco is one of the densest large cities in the U.S.” That is true in both senses of the word “dense.” Nowhere are San Franciscans more dense than when talking about housing — especially...
Journalists and Economics 101
Is deficit spending “a potent recession cure when administered properly”? A newspaper business writer made this assertion in an article entitled “The Budget Deficit Faced by Many States.” But is it true, that it’s a good thing when...
AOL Antitrust Suit Against Microsoft
Instead of straightening out its business problems, AOL has decided to spend its time and effort filing lawsuits against tough competitors – a petty, distracting pursuit that won’t help AOL or, for that matter, the U.S. economy, which depends on firms like Microsoft for the innovation necessary to bring about a technology revival.
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