In a major speech on July 9, 2002, in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, President Bush announced a series of regulatory initiatives to “expose and root out corruption” in American business. Stressing that “the vast majority of businessmen...
POLITICS
Media Ignorance
People in the major news media have come in for considerable and sometimes bitter criticism. They’ve been charged with anti-Americanism, leftism, bias and just plain lying, as in the cases of former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, The Associated...
Raghuram G. Rajan: Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists
The International Monetary Fund made an important appointment last week, naming Raghuram G. Rajan of the University of Chicago as its new chief economist. In this position, he will oversee all of the IMF’s economic research and have a great deal to say about its...
The Case for Bearishness
Even my old friends have turned against me! As the angry emails continue to pour in from bearish readers who are furious at me for my last couple of bullish columns, my old friend Fred Goodman — the master technical analyst — has issued a major sell...
Blacks Remain Oppressed, But Not By White Americans
Black leaders have done in 40 years what white people could not do in 400; they’ve made us accept inferior status.
Dealing with School Violence
Marc Epstein teaches history at Jamaica High School in Queens, N.Y. He wrote the summer 2003 issue of Education Next’s feature story, titled “Security Detail.” If an American, who passed away as late as 1960, were somehow resurrected, he’d...
A Patriot for the Defense of America
Not the ground soldier, stealth bomber nor nuclear bomb is America ‘s most crucial weapon in its war on terrorists. To Jason Crawford, president of Patriots for the Defense of America, that weapon is moral clarity, without which our leaders would be unwilling to...
Social Engineering, Educational Pluralism, and Holistic Racism
They say we wouldn’t eat sausages if we ever visited a meat packing plant. For many of us, that’s probably true of hamburgers too. It’s one thing on a nice day to run into the supermarket and pick up some nice fresh-looking quarter-pounders for the...
Supreme Court Defends Racism in America's Universities
Last week’s Supreme Court rulings in the University of Michigan cases set a modern record for shamelessess. State universities are not barred by the Constitution from engaging in racial discrimination, five justices decided. They are only prohibited from doing...
Iran is the Root of Islamic Terrorism
Following an overwhelming military victory in Iraq, the Bush administration has renewed its pursuit of creating a Palestinian terrorist state, instead of focusing on the premier sponsor of anti-American terrorism: Iran. While the administration once again entangles...
Penny-Wise/Pound-Foolish: Bush Sanctions Democrat Spending Principles
In a recent column, I suggested that George W. Bush would likely win an overwhelming victory next year, given the weakness of the Democratic field. National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru agrees, but he makes the important point that this prospect is not necessarily...
Can We Afford Tax Cuts?
When President Bush first announced his plan last January to cut taxes on dividends, capital gains and personal income I sang his praises (first here, here and also here and here). Now Bush’s plan has been law for over two months. While the critics have had no...
What Makes an American?
Thousands of people from around the world will raise their right hands, swear allegiance to the United States, and become proud American citizens this weekend. They will become Americans because they choose to do so, they love what we stand for, and they are willing...
Death to Theocracy: America Must Act Now to Bring Down Iran’s Regime
The Bush administration has been right in recent weeks to focus attention on Iran–but not because of the threat that Iran might build nuclear weapons. Iran is the source of a much more powerful weapon of mass destruction that has already been unleashed against...
Grateful for the Patriot Act
To civil-liberties alarmists, Viet Dinh is a traitor. To me, he is an American hero. Dinh, 35, is widely known — and reviled — as the primary architect of the Patriot Act. Until May, he was an assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Policy in...
Declaring Our Independence. Again!
I have a friend who says America needs a new Declaration of Independence. Specifically, he says the United States needs to declare its independence from the United Nations. There is little the US gains from being tied to the dictates of the UN and much to lose as it...
No Media Bias?
Denials of media bias seem to have become more frequent or more vehement lately. Some in the media try to dismiss the accusation as old stuff. But the only real question is whether it is true, because the truth doesn’t wear out with the passage of time. Media...
Destorying Black Youth
In last week’s U.S. Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision, Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissent included a quotation from an 1865 speech by abolitionist Frederick Douglass. “What I ask for the Negro,” Douglass said, “is not...
Sabine Herold: Saving France From Itself
In the 15th century, a young woman named Joan rallied the people of France to revolt against their English oppressors. Today, another young woman, named Sabine Herold, is trying to do the same thing. Only she is not trying to save France from foreign invaders but from...
The Fourth of July
Why do we celebrate the Fourth of July? After all, we are taught from kindergarten to the universities that all cultures are entitled to equal respect. Why then celebrate the creation of a nation that is no better than any other nation? Indeed, if you heard only the...
In Praise of Another Tax Cut
Early on in the 2000 presidential race, President Bush unveiled his plan for a $1.6 trillion tax cut. Back then, the justification was that the economy was in great shape, and the designated beneficiaries were, as Bush put it, “those who paid the bill,”...
Death to Dictators in Iran
“Happy colors became sinful, joy became a crime, and death was worshipped.” That’s how Reza Mahmoodshahi, writing last December in The Cornell Review, describes what happened in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile and assumed his post as...
Revisiting the Efficient Market Hypothesis
Over the past few months, the stock market has put on one of those frequent demonstrations that show exactly why smart investors buy stocks and hold on to them — or, better yet, why they consistently buy more. The economic news has not been good, with...
Reducto Ad Totalitarianism
Imagine a society in which an unelected, few people, qualified for power only by their mastery of esoteric terminology and incantations, are able to dictate our everyday lives in the most minute detail–growing rich in the process by siphoning off unearned...
A Leap Toward Socialized Medicine — By One Vote
Last Thursday night, Congress approved President Bush’s expansion of Medicare by one vote. Once Bush signs the bill, every American over age 65 will lose the freedom to choose, pay for and control drug treatments. The proposal, set to start in three years, is a...
Defining Market Share: A Glimpse at Reality
According to The Times of London, the city of Munich has replaced Microsoft Windows with a Linux operating system in 14,000 of its computers. This provided a glimpse of economic reality, completely contrary to the premise on which Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson...
Government’s Long-Term Fiscal Imbalance
One of the hottest documents circulating around Washington today is a highly technical, statistics-laden, 131-page paper by Hoover Institution economist Michael Boskin. First reported by Jim McTague in Barron’s on June 16, it estimates that the taxation of...
ImClone’s Sam Waksal Should Have Read Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’
If Sam Waksal had read Atlas Shrugged , he may have walked free. In a memorable scene in Atlas Shrugged, Hank Rearden, a self-made steel magnate, sat, like Waksal, in a courtroom, on trial. Rearden, like Waksal, had violated the law. Rearden’s crime had been to...
Cancer Cluster Bluster
Exploiting junk science is great for re-election campaign coffers. Thus, one of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s first major crusades after she took office was to whip up public health hysteria on Long Island, where some activists have blamed slightly elevated breast...
Saving Racism in our Universities
There was some talk recently about upcoming vacancies on the Supreme Court because some retirements were expected. However, the High Court’s decision on affirmative action suggests that there are already vacancies, even though no one has resigned. We can only...
The Democrat’s Barry Goldwater
One of the problems with polling is that people are often given open-ended alternatives to specific people and issues. For example, a political candidate may poll poorly when an opponent is unspecified, because people in effect insert their ideal candidate as the...
Airline Deregulation Revisited
Ever wondered how the whole airline fare system works? Why is it, for example, that the guy you sat next to on that flight to Schenectady got a fare that was half of what you paid? Why is it that fares booked a month out are cheaper than fares booked two weeks out,...
Subscribe for free.
Latest pro-Capitalism goodness sent weekly to your email box.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.