Clarifying the Meaning of Initiation of Physical Force August 21, 2004 While I agree with the administration’s use of preemptive attacks against the Hussein regime, I note that Dr. Hurd’s endorsement occurs in an article linked to the Capitalism web site...
POLITICS
Hot, Bubbling Oil
Crude is quickly approaching $50 a barrel, leaving no doubt in my mind that oil is in a speculative bubble — very much like what happened to the NASDAQ in 1999 and 2000. Previoiusly I wrote about some of the forces behind the alarming price rise: increasing...
Two Versions of Vietnam
It is a painful reflection on the political atmosphere today that, in an era when nuclear devastation may strike American soil within our lifetime, courtesy of terrorists supplied with nuclear weapons by North Korea or Iran , we are arguing about what did or...
Thoughts on Internment of Japanese Americans During World War II
According to its publisher, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin’s controversial new book In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror in support of the WWII incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent argues...
Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition
“In the United States, there are now more than 318,000 people behind bars for violations of drug prohibition, more than the number of persons incarcerated for all crimes in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined,” writes Jeffrey A....
House of God, House of War
Picture this scenario: a group of heavily armed Roman Catholics, led by a priest, swarms into St. Joseph’s Cathedral in New York. They claim it as a military base. They fire grenades from its windows. They set explosive charges, in order to blow it up and blame...
Socialism is Evil: Part II
Positive reader response to “Socialism Is Evil” was quite surprising.
War on Poverty Revisited
August 20th marks the 40th anniversary of one of the major turning points in American social history. That was the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating his “War on Poverty” program in 1964. Never had there been such a...
Election 2004: Looking Ahead While Living Today
Q: Dr. Hurd, you sometimes imply that it would be worse to vote for John Kerry than for President Bush. But President Bush wants to push his religious agenda on the nation. Isn’t that worse than John Kerry? A: Bush’s religious agenda is bad indeed. I will...
Why Is There No Car Insurance Crisis?
Is there something special about health insurance that makes it crisis-prone? I mean, we never hear about the horrible “house insurance crisis” or the “spiraling cost of auto insurance.” It wouldn’t be too hard to create such a crisis...
United Nations Wages War on Capitalism
As if our nation’s free-market ideal isn’t damaged enough — witness, if you will, the generally lengthy permitting process for businesses and the prevalence of zoning laws, environmental mandates, eminent domain abuses and hefty tax burdens that...
Do We Want Socialized Medicine?
Problems with our health care system are leading some to fall prey to proposals calling for a nationalized single-payer health care system like Canada’s or Britain’s. There are a few things that we might take into consideration before falling for these...
Simple Rules for a Complex Market
Although investing is a subtle and complicated endeavor, everyone can benefit from a simple set of rules and principles. One of my favorite portfolio managers, Thomas K. Brown, chief executive of Second Curve Capital, a New York hedge fund that specializes in...
Random Thoughts for August 2004
Random thoughts on the passing scene: I don’t even like campaign oratory that I agree with. Alaska is much larger than France and Germany — combined. Yet its population is less than one-tenth that of New York City . Keep that in mind the next time you hear...
Election Year 2000: A Million Black Voters Disenfranchised?
Tell me again. Which of the presidential candidates calls himself a “uniter” and not a “divider”? “Don’t tell us that the strongest democracy on earth,” said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in a recent speech for...
The Real Price of a Free Lunch
Economic ignorance allows us to fall easy prey to political charlatans and demagogues, so how about a little Economics 101? How many times have we heard “free tuition,” “free health care,” and free you-name-it? If a particular good or service...
Political Power and Knowledge
Despite clever and hard-working political handlers who have done a masterful job of concealing and distracting attention from John Kerry’s voting record in his long Senate career, and the liberal vision behind that record, glimmers of reality still break through...
The Collectivist Convention: The Democrats’ Bait-and-Switch Philosophy
What does America stand for? What are its founding ideas? In this contentious election, each side is trying to convince us that its policies and ideals are the answer to this question. The Democrats have traditionally relied on a simple technique: appeal to the values...
Liberals Cannot Level
Sometimes little things can tell you about big things. While Senator John Kerry and his running-mate Senator John Edwards were recently being photographed at lunchtime at Wendy’s, to show what regular guys they are, their real lunch was from a local yacht club,...
Dispelling Some Crude Myths About Oil’s Real Impact
Economists are beginning to panic about the recent run-up in the oil price (+36%, year to-date, to $44.4/barrel) and its likely future impact on stock prices, profits and output in the U.S. But there’s no reason to panic. A fast-rising oil price is no necessary...
Bullish on Asia
Returning from my latest trip to Asia, I’m both exhilarated and perplexed. Exhilarated because Asia is booming, and it’s a joy to see. Thailand, my main stop this time, is growing at 7 percent a year — twice as fast as the United States and about...
High Prices at the Gas Pump: NIMBYS, BANANAS and Greens
Prices at gas pumps are at some of the highest levels ever this summer and Americans want answers. In particular they want the names and numbers of those to blame. To answer that question perhaps they should simply consult the phone book or look in the mirror. Because...
The New York Times: Newspaper of Broken Record
“Is the New York Times A Liberal Newspaper?” asked a headline on the last Sunday in July. The first sentence had the answer: “Of course it is.” If that sounds like a dog-bites-man story, then consider the kicker: The article appeared in The New...
The Left’s Vision
Santa Monica, California , has decreed a fine of $2,500 a day for not cutting your hedges! Has someone discovered some terrible health hazard or other danger from hedges that are too high? Not at all. The politicians who run Santa Monica have simply decided that...
Lance Armstrong — Role Model for Success
“I believe that the man who works the hardest is the man who deserves to win.” — Lance Armstrong “Perfect! No gifts.” That’s what Frenchman Hinault said to Lance Armstrong from atop the winner’s podium after Armstrong...
The Left’s Vocabulary
A recent angry e-mail from a reader said that certain issues should not be determined by “the dictates of the market.” With a mere turn of a phrase, he had turned reality upside down. Decisions by people free to make their mutual accommodations with other...
I Survived the Democratic Convention
At the Democratic National Convention, Janeane Garofalo — comedienne, talk show host and liberal pundit — called me a “house Negro” and a “fascist.” Well! For four days, the Democratic Party put on its quadrennial...
American Muslim Council Founder Heads to Jail
In 2002, the spokesman for FBI director Robert Mueller memorably described the American Muslim Council (AMC) as the “the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States.” A year later, the Catholic bishops called the AMC “the premier, mainstream...
Electing an Image
Much of what is being said and done at the Democratic convention in Boston is so 1960s. The old favorite songs of the left, the old rhetoric, the old gestures, the delegates swaying together, all take you back to a time 40 years ago when the liberal vision seized the...
Conservatives, Liberals, and Blacks
During the first Reagan administration, I participated in a number of press conferences on either a book or article I’d written or as a panelist in a discussion of White House public policy. On occasion, when the question-and-answer session began, I’d tell...
Conventional Wisdom: A Test for the Market and For John Kerry
This week’s national convention of the Democratic Party was a test for nominee John Kerry. It was a test for the stock market, too, with all the major indexes probing their lows for the year. It’s no coincidence that these two tests occurred in the same...
Big-Bucks Class Action Lawsuits: Sharing the Lawsuit Wealth
My ears picked up when my wife told me that she was one of the beneficiaries of a class-action lawsuit that brought a settlement of more than $100 million. “How many millions do you get?” I asked. I could envision our retiring to the Riviera or some such...
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