Well-off American college students and $25 per hour union workers have banded together in a growing movement for what they describe as a “progressive” cause and a battle against “exploitation.” Their goal: to take away economic opportunities...
POLITICS
The Price of Free Money
Just last month I proclaimed the old clich
Bill Janklow Should Step Down From Office
It’s all a big joke to Rep. Bill Janklow, the Republican congressman from South Dakota with a lead foot, a hollow heart, and an ego the size of his Cadillac death-mobile. Conservatives with a conscience should be appalled that the powerful GOP representative,...
Politics & Ideas: The Battle Over Ideas (Lecture 6, Part 4 of 4)
In contrast, however, the interventionist ideas, the socialist ideas, the inflationist ideas of our time, have been concocted and formalized by writers and professors. And they are taught at colleges and universities. You may say: “Today’s situation is...
Foreign Trade Angst: Facts and Fictions
I’ve written a nationally syndicated column for nearly 25 years. Columns critical of Social Security and handouts to farmers used to bring the angry self-serving mail. Now it’s international trade. Let me address some of the issues raised. First,...
Politics & Ideas: The Rise and Decline of Civilization (Lecture 6, Part 3 of 4)
People say that every civilization must finally fall into ruin and disintegrate. There are eminent supporters of this idea. One was a German teacher, Spengler, and another one, much better known, was the English historian, Toynbee. They tell us that our civilization...
Compassion for Criminals, But Not Their Victims
For more than two centuries, the political left has crusaded against the punishment of criminals. Anyone familiar with history can find 18th century writers saying the same things that today’s critics, politicians, judges and the ACLU are saying about how...
Politics & Ideas: The Philosophy of Interventionism (Lecture 6, Part 2 of 4)
Under interventionist ideas, it is the duty of the government to support, to subsidize, to give privileges to special groups. The idea of the eighteenth century statesmen was that the legislators had special ideas about the common good. But what we have today,...
Death of a Dream? On the Anniversary of Martin Luther King’s Speech
What is vital to the interests of black “leaders” and the Democratic Party is to keep blacks paranoid and dependent. For that, everything must be blamed on “racism.”
Politics & Ideas: The Interdependence of Economics and Politics (Lecture 6, Part 1 of 4)
In the Age of Enlightenment in the years in which the North Americans founded their independence, and a few years later, when the Spanish and Portuguese colonies were transformed into independent nations, the prevailing mood in Western civilization was optimistic. At...
Say No to the “Self-Esteem” Pushers
The beginning of a school year is an appropriate time to question how our schools propose to teach our children. Today’s educators, observing widespread self-doubt and despair among the young, believe that the way to get a student to learn is to inflate his...
Labor Unions vs. Labor
Some holidays inspire us to celebrate our collective heritage. We watch fireworks on July Fourth. On Memorial Day we remember the sacrifices made by our troops for the advancement of freedom. Labor Day, like the movement it symbolizes, is much younger than those...
Trade Deficits with China: An Economic Analysis
The rapidly rising U.S. trade deficit with China is quickly becoming a political issue. Many members of Congress are warning that China needs to take action, such as raising its exchange rate, to deal with this problem before it leads to protectionist legislation. A...
China War on Space-Based Weapons
August 11, 2003 | | What is China’s position on space-based weapons? Considering the gap between what officials in Beijing say and what they do on the issue, it’s hard to get a straight answer. But let’s look at the facts. For some time now, China...
Manufacturing is Healthy
In a recent column, I argued that the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy is in relatively good shape, despite the sharp decline in manufacturing employment. I clearly touched a nerve with this column. Not only did I receive a great many emails, but my fellow...
The Looters Liberals Ignore, Revisited
Three months ago, this column wondered if the New York Times would ever cover the abominable Democrat teachers’ union scandal in Florida. Investigators from the FBI and Miami-Dade’s Public Corruption Task Force raided the powerful United Teachers of Dade...
Helping America Compete
It would be easy to resent the World Trade Organization right now. Here we are, trying to get our economy to grow, and the WTO comes along and says the European Union gets to impose a $4 billion annual tax hike on American companies. This is because of a WTO ruling...
Home Loans for Illegal Aliens?!
The American dream of home ownership, complete with the white picket fence, is alive and well for those who break our laws and break down our fences to get in. Last week, The Washington Post published a rosy front-page tale headlined, “Illegal Immigrants Buy...
Time to Celebrate Man’s Mind
It is fitting that the most productive nation on earth should have a holiday to honor its work. The high standard of living that Americans enjoy is hard-earned and well-deserved. But the term “Labor Day” is a misnomer. What we should celebrate is not sweat...
The Terrorist Next Door
Howls of rage went up after the Joint Terrorism Task Force, guns drawn, arrested Maher Hawash in the parking lot of an Intel Corp. facility in March and placed him in solitary confinement. The protests intensified as prosecutors detained him without charges for more...
Outsourcing The Service Sector?
For years, manufacturers have been outsourcing operations to foreign countries to obtain lower wage costs and escape from high taxes, burdensome government regulations and intransigent unions here at home. Now, it appears that the service sector is joining the trend....
Privatize the US Postal Service
In July, sports fans were treated to the spectacle of Lance Armstrong racing to his fifth Tour de France victory. The event, improbably, brought widespread attention to the U.S. Postal Service, whose logo was plastered across Armstrong’s jersey. It remains to be...
Whose Mailbox is it Anyway?
Recently, I fixed and painted my old and ailing mailbox. After sanding it, and applying two coats of primer and two coats of black paint, I affixed new numbers representing our street address. It would seem natural that I should maintain and take good care of my...
Libya Gets Away With Terrorist Acts Against the United States
At a time when the United States of America are fighting a war against International Terrorism and Terrorist States, the last thing the country needs is the appearance of weakness or appeasement. But the settlement that is looking more and more likely between the...
Total Surveillance Equals Total Tyranny
In the name of fighting terrorism a new kind of government is being implemented in Washington, D.C. We are witnessing the birth of a powerful multi-billion dollar surveillance lobby consisting of an army of special interest groups, Washington lawyers, lobbyists, and...
America’s Military Must Focus on Vital Missions
Even as West African peacekeeping forces began landing in Liberia, the calls for American troops continued. “You Americans alone are the only people who can help us,” a fighter with the Liberian president’s anti-terrorism unit told The Washington...
The Refugee Curse
Here’s a puzzle: How do Palestinian refugees differ from the other 135 million 20th-century refugees? Answer: In every other instance, the pain of dispossession, statelessness, and poverty has diminished over time. Refugees eventually either resettled, returned...
Capitalism and Government Intervention
Many countries often thought to be socialist, either now or in the past, such as Sweden, Israel, and Britain under the old Labor Party, should be thought of as hampered market economies instead.
A Tale of Two Wars
Here we are, five months after the war in Iraq began, and we haven’t yet solved all of that country’s problems. Who would have thought that we would? Apparently a significant section of the American media either thought that we would or is simply piling on...
Sept 11th: One Month Until The Anniversary
Next month it will be the second anniversary of the worst day in American history. How goes the war? To our government’s credit there has not been a repeat terrorist attack in the US. The Taliban government was overthrown. Saddam Hussein is no longer a...
A Lesson for Arnold Schwarzenegger: Warren Buffet to the California Democrat’s Rescue
Just a week ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the political sensation of California — and of the national media, with his face on the cover of both Time and Newsweek. Polls showed him leading everyone in the horde of candidates for governor by a wide margin. Now...
Mortgage Markets: In Control
In writing so much about Paul Krugman I have, to some extent, become distracted from writing about the most common and most dangerous media manifestation of the conspiracy to keep you poor and stupid. Krugman’s only a very special case of it: his writings about...
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