Researching an article on outsourcing a week ago, I came across a remarkable list on the website of CNN’s Lou Dobbs. It was a sort of rogues’ gallery, touted nightly on the show. “These are companies,” says the Dobbs site, “either sending...
POLITICS
Equality, Inequality and Fate
One of the confusions that plagues discussions of equality and inequality is a confusion between the vagaries of fate and the sins of man. There are plenty of both but they need to be sharply distinguished from one another. The plain fact that there are large...
No Free Lunch: For Every Benefit There is a Cost
The first concept an economics student learns is that for every benefit there’s also a cost — or, as my longtime colleague and friend Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman has put it, “There’s no free lunch.” While the person who receives the...
Exploiters vs. Victims in the Grocery Strike
The California grocery strike has entered its fourth month–and there is no end in sight. Workers are still picketing stores, the shelves are under-stocked, and profits are dwindling. Talks between the grocery chains and the United Food and Commercial...
Reading the Koran?
“Anyone concerned with what’s happening in our world ought to spend some time reading the Koran.” Andy Rooney, the famed CBS commentator, gave this advice shortly after 9/11, as did plenty of others. His suggestion makes intuitive sense, given that...
The Inequality Dogma
This is truly the age of dogma when it comes to differences between groups. Some will blindly deny that intergroup differences in performances are anything other than “stereotypes,” “perceptions,” or discrimination. At the other end of the...
To Ban Cloning Would Be a Moral Abomination
In a huge breakthrough for medical progress, scientists from South Korea have finally created a cloned human embryo and extracted its stem cells–a feat that makes life-saving embryonic stem-cell treatments that much closer to reality. Instead of taking this...
A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America
Some people believe in the lost continent of Atlantis and in unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Others worry about an 18th-century secret society called the Bavarian Illuminati or a mythical Zionist-Occupied Government secretly running the United States. What if...
Martha Stewart and Insider Trading
As Martha Stewart’s trial moves into a third week, an important question remains unasked: Why are the feds prosecuting someone for receiving inside information, anyway? Isn’t the criminal the corporate official who acts on knowledge that the public...
Is Saudi Arabia Our Enemy, Too?
The time has long since passed when the United States should be referring to Saudi Arabia as an ally. It is our enemy and an unprecedented demand for the bank account records of the Washington, DC Saudi Embassy in November 2003 demonstrates that the National Security...
I’m Mad as Hell at PeopleSoft
Antitrust laws are supposed to protect us little guys, right? Think again. Here’s the story of how PeopleSoft chief executive Craig Conway is using the antitrust laws to deprive his own shareholders of the opportunity to sell their shares at the best price....
Conversation with Nancy Reagan
Conversation at the Ronald Reagan Library, Simi Valley, Calif., Friday, Feb. 6, 2004: Larry Elder: Let me tell you what an honor this is. This is like meeting royalty. Nancy Reagan: Thank you very much. Thank you. Elder: Tell me what you consider your greatest...
Bush or Kerry? You Bet!
I love markets. Just think of all the things they make possible. Whenever there’s a way for people to trade with each other, they always find ways to make money and reduce risk. So whenever market principles get applied in new ways, the world becomes a better...
Governed By Rules, Not Men
Having been deserted by her husband, my mother worked. That meant that my one-year-younger sister and I often lunched by ourselves during our pre-teen years. Being bigger and stronger than my sister, quite often there wouldn’t be a fair division of the food,...
The Brotherhood of Man
Those of us who believe in the brotherhood of man have to be able to accept the negative, as well as the positive, aspects of that belief. For example, a stupid and counterproductive idea that catches the fancy of one part of the human race in one part of the world in...
Weapons of Political Destruction
The issue of “weapons of mass destruction” is being played for all it is worth as a weapon of political destruction. In fact, it is being played for more than it is worth. The ultimate question is whether we should or should not have gone to war with the...
The Fallacy of Insider Trading
With Martha Stewart going on trial this week, it’s a perfect time to take a look at insider trading. From what I can tell, Ms. Stewart is being railroaded. And whatever the merits (or lack thereof) of the case against her, investors shouldn’t be especially...
Jumping Hurdles for Petty Bureaucrats
It is a sad but understandable fact that there are many places where the poor cannot afford to buy a house. California has the distinction of having many places where the affluent cannot afford to buy or build a house — and it is not necessarily a slam dunk for...
The Terror of “Animal Rights”
The “animal rights” movement is celebrating its latest victory: an earlier, more painful death for future victims of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease. Thanks to intimidation by animal rights terrorists, Cambridge...
Criminalization Doesn’t Curb Drug Use
The great journalist H.L. Mencken was a fierce critic of alcohol prohibition. He wrote in 1925: “Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the...
Repealing Tax Cuts Equals a Tax Increase
Every profession has its unofficial list-of-things-you-don’t-say, and politics is no exception. A leading entry: Never call for a tax hike. At least, not by name. Instead, do what the Democratic presidential candidates do: Cloak your hike in the reassuring...
Housing Hurdles: The Solution?
Once, after giving a talk, I was confronted by a lady in the audience who asked what some people regard as the ultimate question: “What is YOUR solution?” “There are no solutions,” I said. “There are only trade-offs.” “The...
On Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Did the American President Lie?
Can one make the case that President George W. Bush “lied” or “misled” or intentionally “mischaracterized” the intelligence on Iraq and WMD in order to lead us to war? Sure, if one possesses a visceral anti-Bush mindset coupled with...
Limit Lobbying By Cutting Government
In their view, the traditional Washington career path — a stint in government followed by a lucrative job lobbying former colleagues — is inherently corrupt. Both candidates propose restrictions, including limits on the ability of former government...
Housing Hurdles in California
A new study shows that you need an income of about $104,000 to buy an average home on the San Francisco peninsula with a 20 percent down payment. Since the average price of a home in this area is more than half a million dollars, the 20 percent down payment itself...
The Anti-Free Trader’s True Enemy
There’s the “Free Trade but Fair Trade” crowd, and the “Level Playing Field” crowd, and the “America First” crowd, all calling for tariffs and other international trade restrictions. Their supposed adversary is corporate...
What Makes the Super Bowl “Super”
Hours before the Green Bay Packers defeated the New England Patriots 35-21 in Super Bowl XXXI on January 26, 1997, I overheard a supermarket cashier greet a coworker with a salutation I’d not heard before: “Happy Super Bowl Sunday.” That incident had...
Senator John Edward’s “Special Interests”
This election year we are sure to hear a lot about “special interests.” Candidates of both major parties, as well as candidates of third or fourth parties, are sure to denounce special interests both hotly and repeatedly. The secret of these verbal...
Exploiters vs Victims in the Grocery Strike
The California grocery strike has entered its fourth month–and there is no end in sight. Workers are still picketing stores, the shelves are under-stocked, and profits are dwindling. Talks between the grocery chains and the United Food and Commercial...
T.S. Ashton on The Industrial Revolution
Despite more than a hundred years of condemnations and the harshest ridicule men like Friedrich Engels could hurl at the time period known in Great Britain as the Industrial Revolution (1760-1830) Dr. T.S. Ashton took up the task of restoring, or at least attempting...
Judeo-Christian Philosophy and the Founding of America
A curious notion is mushrooming lately on programs such as “The O’Reilly Factor” and other current events shows. Certain commentators claim that the United States of America owes its existence to what is termed “Judeo-Christian”...
History Refutes Rubinomics
Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, is back — and he’s everywhere. He’s written a book. He’s delivered a paper before the prestigious American Economic Association. He’s giving loads of TV interviews. Among Democratic...
Subscribe for free.
Latest pro-Capitalism goodness sent weekly to your email box.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.