Democrat and Republican candidates for President are debating one another on nearly every issue--but nearly all are united on one thing: America faces a crisis of "income inequality." The rich are getting richer, the refrain goes, while the poor and middle class are...
POLITICS
The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded, and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of “conservatism” and “liberalism” which had lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men. – AYN RAND
Tragic Implications in Minnesota and in Utah
Two recent tragedies -- in Minnesota and in Utah -- have held the nation's attention. The implications of these tragedies also deserve attention. Those politicians who are always itching to raise tax rates have seized upon the neglected infrastructure of the country...
The Wisconsin Experiment with Socialized Medicine
"On, Wisconsin ... run the ball clear down the field!" It's time to amend the Wisconsin football song so we can cheer on the Badger State's politicians as they move toward health-care socialism. The Wall Street Journal editorial-page editors are upset that Wisconsin's...
Sub-Prime Politicians and Mortgage Loans By People Buying Homes
Amid all the hand-wringing and finger-pointing as housing markets collapse, mortgage foreclosures skyrocket, and financial markets panic, there is very little attention being paid to the fundamental economic and political decisions that led to this mess. The growth in...
Silencing Dissent on Global Warming
Global warming has become a big-ticket item in the eyes of its supporters. At stake are research funds, jobs and the ability to control lives all over the globe. Most climatologists agree that over the last century, the Earth's average temperature has risen about one...
A Bridge Too Far Gone in Minnesota
It took a collapsing bridge in Minnesota to alert people across the country to the fact that many other bridges in many other places have been allowed to deteriorate without adequate maintenance. If this were just a matter of poor political leadership at various...
Economic Thinking
Historical costs, sometimes called sunk costs, are irrelevant to decision-making because they are costs that have already been incurred. That's something that's not intuitively obvious, even for some trained economists. On a couple of occasions, I've recommended to a...
Health Care: Government vs. Private
Sometimes the advocates of socialized medicine claim that health care is too important to be left to the market. That's why some politicians are calling for us to adopt health care systems such as those in Canada, the United Kingdom and other European nations. But the...
Economists on the Loose
On July 11, New York Times reporter Patricia Cohen wrote an article titled, "In Economics Departments, a Growing Will to Debate Fundamental Assumptions." The article begins with, "For many economists, questioning free-market orthodoxy is akin to expressing a belief in...
Michael Moore and Me
Michael Moore loves government. OK, he doesn't love a government headed by George W. Bush, but he believes that once the Democrats are in charge, government will do a better job providing health care. In his new movie, "Sicko," he praises government-controlled health...
The Nightmare of Being a U.S. Combat Troop in Iraq Hamstrung By Washington’s Battlefield “Ethics”
Americans rightly admire our troops for their bravery, dedication and integrity. The Marines, for instance, are renowned for abiding by an honorable code--as warriors and as individuals in civilian life. They epitomize the rectitude of America's soldiers. But a...
Freedom and Benevolence Go Together
I interviewed Michael Moore recently for an upcoming "20/20" special on health care. It's refreshing to interview a leftist who proudly admits he's a leftist. He told me that government should provide "food care" as well as health care and that big government would...
Illegal Immigration
President Bush and his pro-amnesty allies both in and out of Congress suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the American people. Like any other public controversy, there are vested interests served on both sides of the amnesty issue, but I'd like to raise some...
Live and Let Live
Last week, I bemoaned New York Times columnist David Brooks's eagerness to have government impose force on others. He was promoting programs like "National Service." Why are many conservatives so eager to wield force? Conservatives used to complain when so-called...
Straight Thinking 101
Just about the most difficult lesson for first-year economics students, and sometimes graduate students, is that economic theory, and for that matter any scientific theory, is positive or non-normative. You might ask, "What's this business about positive and...
Do People Care?
Back in the late 1960s, during graduate study at UCLA, I had a casual conversation with Professor Armen Alchian, one of my tenacious mentors. Professor Alchian is among the top 20th-century contributors to economic knowledge. During our graduate student/faculty coffee...
Bad Government Conservatives
"Reviving the Hamilton Agenda." That's the headline the New York Times gave David Brooks's recent column honoring Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father perhaps least interested in limiting political power. Unlike his rival Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton favored strong...
Why Health Insurance Should Not Be Universal
Should the federal government require everyone to buy health insurance? If the goal is "universal coverage," then obviously the answer is yes. But that isn't the point. The point is that it isn't the duty or right of the government to force people to buy insurance,...
The Law Versus Orders
Suppose a person is raped and we arrest the rapist. Should his status, whether he's a senator, professor or an ordinary man, play a role in the adjudication of the crime and subsequent punishment? I'm betting that the average person would answer that the law against...
Put the Independence Back in Independence Day
Independence is the foundation of America. Independence is what should be celebrated on Independence Day.
All Power to the Post Office
The U.S. government now pays for and controls half of the health care in America. That is up from less than 10 percent forty years ago. Government spending on health care has increased at a rapid rate as its share of health care has increased. Yet those who complain...
How to Stop Iran?
Bush's disastrous foreign policy--especially the Iraq fiasco--has led many to conclude that diplomatic "engagement" is our best hope for stopping Iran's nuclear program. But while Bush's policy is a failure, engagement is not the solution. Bush's "moralistic"...
Bill Gates Needs an Economic Course on Free-Markets
Dropping out of college didn't stop Bill Gates from making tons of money, but it kept him from classes where he might have learned about the beauty of spontaneous market processes. Never mind. I forgot that he attended Harvard. He might not have learned about markets...
The Sad Case of the Spotted Owl
Environmentalists are quick to lecture the rest of us about the ways of nature. Don't clean the dead trees off the forest floor, it's natural. Cattle and horses on the range aren't native, so let the grizzles and wolves devour them, it's natural. Man isn't part of the...
Health Care’s A Mess–So What’s the Solution?
They say health care in the United States is outrageously expensive because of a failure of the free market. But we don't have a free market in health care. States throughout the country regulate private health insurance, and have turned it into a one-size-fits-all...
Catastrophic Global Warming and its Evil Twin ‘Climate Change’ Predictions Wrong on Both Counts
Global warming alarmists are a clever bunch. They have very carefully changed the issue from "global warming" to "climate change." Now any change in weather, be it mild winters or cool summers can be attributed to "climate change." Whatever the weather, the news is...
Socialized Medicine Is Wrong For Colorado
The Colorado Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform recently selected four proposals for health care reform for eventual consideration by the state legislature. Although they differ in their details, these differences are dwarfed by their fundamental similarity...
FDA: Friend or Foe?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is charged with ensuring that only safe and effective drugs are marketed. Such a task is highly complex and fraught with difficulties. Consumers, the ostensible beneficiaries, should examine and question the incentive...
The Writing Process: One Step at a Time
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (or NAEP), the average high school student is an incompetent writer. To evaluate their writing ability, testers asked high school juniors to write a paragraph based on notes they were given about a haunted...
The Failure of Field Trips, Part 2
In my recent article "The Failure of Field Trips," I explained what is wrong with traditional school outings. The typical field trip is irrelevant to the students' education, either because they have been unprepared to appreciate it by their schooling (e.g., City Hall...
Creating Effective Incentives
What should our response be if terrorists set off a nuclear explosion, or some other weapon of mass destruction, in one of our cities? I put this question to Professor Victor Hanson, senior research fellow at Stanford University's prestigious Hoover Institution, who...
The Double “Thank-You” Moment
Some people hate me because I defend free markets. Once someone accosted me on a New York City street and said, "I hope you die soon." Why the hostility to commerce? What could be more benign than the freedom to trade with whomever you wish? I suspect ignorance about...
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