Americans shell out more than $2 trillion each year to keep our federal government running. The least we should expect in return is honesty. Alas, Washington officials aren’t telling the truth about how much they’ve spent, are currently spending or plan to...
POLITICS
Expensing Options Revisited
Paul Atkins this month became the first SEC commissioner to criticize openly a proposal to require companies to treat employee stock options as current expenses. Atkins began by questioning whether the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which has aggressively...
Phony Democratic Debates
The so-called “debates” among the Democratic candidates in the primaries are not really debates — and that is a real shame. In a real debate, opponents could question each other’s statements — and there have been a lot of questionable...
When Did The Howard Dean Meltdown Really Begin?
Supporters of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, aka “Deanie-boppers,” accuse the media of piling on by repeatedly playing his now infamous Iowa caucus “concession speech,” punctuated by his banshee-like “Yeeeaaaaaarggh!”...
Sweatshop Expoitation
Here’s a question. Suppose you see people lining up for hours, and people willing to pay a month’s salary in bribes, in order to get a $2 a day factory job. What might you conclude? Would you guess there are higher-paying jobs around, but the people are...
Third World Sweatshops: Multinational Opportunity vs. Nihilistic Indignation
Those who vent their moral indignation over low pay for Third World workers employed by multinational companies ignore the plain fact that these workers’ employers are usually supplying them with better opportunities than they had before, while those who are...
Third World Sweatshops: Why Cambodian Workers Bribe for ‘Sweatshop’ Jobs
“Low-Wage Costa Ricans Make Baseballs for Millionaires.” That was the headline on one of those New York Times “news” stories that continued its recent tradition of disguised editorials. The headline said it all but the story ran on and on...
Paying Homage to the Architects of the American Welfare State
Would-be defenders of individual rights and liberty, the fundamental ideas of the founding fathers who created the United States of America, have recently decided to pay homage to the Presidents who created the modern American welfare state. I refer of course to...
Great Investing Secrets Revealed
Successful investing all about having the right information. That must be why I frequently get emails from readers asking me what sources of investment information I like best, or where on the Web to locate this or that specific piece of data. So today’s column...
Rewarding the MVPs of the Business World
As millions of Americans watch the New England Patriots take on the Carolina Panthers, every minute of the game will be scrutinized, from all angles and with action replays. But, amid the cheers of victory and cries of disappointment, you won’t hear a whisper of...
Spaced Out: George W. Bush’s Mission to Mars
I say the best tribute to the heroes of space exploration, both living and dead, would be bring to wilds of space the same level of freedom that once made it possible for men to settle the wilds of the American continent.
Stretching the Poor
What do you do when you don’t have as much of something as you need? One of the things you can do is stretch it out to make it last as long as it can. That is what the political left is doing with the poor. A lot of noise is made about how we are “running...
A Radical Solution to America’s Moribund Space Program
After years of declining budgets, public apathy, and failed missions, NASA has gotten a big boost from the Bush Administration’s recent promises of extravagant missions to permanently settle the moon and eventually explore Mars. No one knows what it would cost,...
On WMDs: What Did the Democrats Say?
Did Saddam Hussein and his interest in weapons of mass destruction pose a threat to the United States ? Just ask the Democrats. Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean (D), appearing on “Face the Nation” in September 2002, said, “There’s no...
Improving Education for Black Americans
What needs to be done to improve black education? Whether it’s civil rights organizations, politicians or the education establishment, you’ll get answers that cover the gamut from more money for teachers and smaller class sizes to school desegregation and...
Howard Dean’s Political Bubble: Lessons from Iowa
The headline story out of the Iowa caucuses is Senator John Kerry’s surprising victory and the collapse of Governor Howard Dean’s political bubble. This is all very well for those in the media who treat politics as the personal stories of politicians. But,...
Wesley Clark’s Opportunism
I met Wesley Clark, now a presidential candidate, in 1992 when I was an army lieutenant attending the Officer Basic Course. The then-2 star general came to Ft. Knox, KY to address our graduating class. General Clark was charismatic, personable and gave a motivating...
Bush’s Faith is Immoral, But He’s Better Than His Christian Critics
The writer of a letter recently appearing in The Tennessean says the president’s religious faith conflicts with his decision to go to war in Iraq. Many of Bush’s Christian critics share this opinion. And in one sense they’re right. There is indeed a...
Dean’s Fascism and the Me-Too Right
While Republicans popularize Howard Dean’s quote that capturing Saddam Hussein “has not made America safer,” they should also promote an earlier comment that explicitly revealed his basic politics. But that the Right fails to recognize its...
The Eight Dingbats and Economic Stagnation
There has been much uninformed talk of economics lately as the eight Democrats vying for their party’s presidential nomination run around Iowa and New Hampshire crying about how jobs aren’t been created in the economic recovery and that the recovery in...
Advice for 2004
Last week was my 2003 year-in-review column. This time it’s about 2004, the year ahead. I do think we’ll have another good year. I’ll explain why, but I’ll also talk about what I see as one significant risk factor. And I’ll give you an...
Soft-Line Ideologues Revisited: Foreign-Policy Soft-Liners are Pragmatists
Last week, there was a very interesting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by two influential neoconservatives: David Frum and Richard Perle. The title was “Beware the Soft-Line Ideologues,” and it has a good theme, but it gets completely twisted up...
George W. Bush: The New JFK?
President Bush, having spent trillions of young people’s dollars on the prescription drugs of old people, now wants to throw billions at an expanded space program. Now you won’t find a stronger advocate of space travel than myself. Space travel represents...
Taliban Lite: The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
The New York Times reported this week: Afghan Council Gives Approval to Constitution: In a carefully balanced wording, the country will be renamed the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, combining democracy and religion. There is to be a system of civil law, but no law...
Random Thoughts for January 2004
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Some people’s jobs will allow them to be important only by being a pain. Politics is the art of making your personal desires seem like the national interest. One of the people I am glad I trusted is someone who got angry and...
The Man with “Television Addiction” Threatens to Sue Cable Company
Accusing his cable company of “addicting” him, his wife and his kids to TV, a Wisconsin man threatened to sue Charter Communications. Tim Dumouchel of Fond du Lac said his family’s viewing habits — forced on him by cable TV — caused his...
A Nation of “Hamburger Flippers”?
It might have been Ross Perot who first used the expression that America is turning into a nation of “hamburger flippers,” in reference to the decline in good paying manufacturing jobs replaced by low-pay service sector jobs. Here’s my question: If...
“Save Manufacturing Jobs”
“Manufacturing jobs” has become a battle cry of those who oppose free trade and are sounding an alarm about American jobs being exported to lower-wage countries overseas. However, manufacturing jobs are much less of a problem than manufacturing confusion....
Profiling and Prejudice: A Call for Intelligent Profiling
In mid-November, Yusuf Suleman Motala, a Muslim leader in the United Kingdom said to be highly regarded and have a vast following, was at Heathrow Airport on his way to the lesser pilgrimage in Mecca. But British officers stopped him and Mr. Motala reports they asked...
Martha Stewart: Guilty Until Somehow Proven Innocent?
As the Martha Stewart case finally goes to trial, it is clear that Ms. Stewart has already been convicted in the court of public opinion. Observe the undisguised delight with which reporters and pundits describe the prospect of seeing Stewart hauled up before the...
A Slave State: Society in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia
Sir Thomas More’s Utopia lays out several important ideas that help us understand the political thought of both now and the Renaissance as well as providing us with a look into the conditions of sixteenth century Europe. The book primarily acts as a vehicle for...
NASDAQ vs. NYSE: Stock Trading Transformed by Technology and Competition
Today’s bold and surprising announcement that six New York Stock Exchange companies would also list their shares on the NASDAQ Stock Market is a clear sign that more competition is coming to the vast markets where stocks are bought and sold. The decision by the...
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