One of the most powerful museums in Washington, D.C., is the Holocaust Memorial Museum. It's the one site I always recommend to people visiting the city, even though it takes a couple of days to shake off the malaise that settles in after you've seen it. It's a...
POLITICS
Mutual-Fund Industry’s Campaign Against Independent Analysts
Think the Mutual-Fund industry's "late trading" and "market timing" abuses are scandalous? Well, I never quite saw what all the fuss was about. But now the mutual-fund industry is doing something that's really scandalous. It's engaged in a campaign to put America's...
Resolutions for a New Year
Consider yourself blessed if you, like myself, grew up with parents who taught personal responsibility through leading by both word and deed. Yet lacking an in-home role model or role models — my father grew up as an out-of-wedlock only child — does not necessarily determine one’s fate or destiny. Sometimes one must become one’s own role model, a responsibility made easier by following this prescription, originally printed in my first book, “The Ten Things You Can’t Say in America.”
California Politicians: Supporting the Evil, Attacking the Good
If you wonder what has gotten California in such an economic mess, here is a recent sample: The state legislature has passed a law requiring landlords to give tenants 60 days' notice, instead of 30 days, before evicting them. In other words, if you are renting to a...
Unreasonable Prices
Early in our marriage, 40-some years ago, Mrs. Williams would return from shopping complaining about the unreasonable prices. Having aired her complaints, she'd then ask me to unload her car laden with purchases. After the unloading, I'd ask her: "I thought you said...
Outlawing “Soft Dollars” Will Crush Independent Analysts
I've been a vigorous defender of the investment-banking and mutual fund industries against over-reaching shakedowns by regulatory vigilante Eliot Spitzer. But now, in at attempt to deflect attention from the scandals raised by Spitzer, the funds business has done...
Greed Makes the World Go Round
"Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse or omission." -- Isabel Paterson, "The God of the Machine" Now that we're in the thick of the holiday season, we're again being warned to be wary of the commercialization, corporatism...
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Seatbelt Laws?
Nationally, Police agencies are stepping up enforcement of seatbelt laws, and in the case of Nevada this means that if you're pulled over for something (you can't be pulled over for not having a seatbelt on) and aren't wearing your seatbelt you will be given a ticket...
Thoughts on the ‘Dismal’ Science
In a hugely complex world, there is no way for the average person -- or any person, for that matter -- to be knowledgeable about even half the things that affect their lives. Most of us are necessarily ignorant of many fields, from botany to brain surgery. We can...
Christmas Encounter with a ‘Radical Socialist’
Moonie, my neighbor's cat, sits predictably outside my front door every morning at 7 a.m. Moonie expects breakfast, and if unhappy with that day's selection -- fish, chicken, beef -- Moonie sniffs indignantly and walks over to the front door and meows for his...
It’s a Commercial Life
If the products and effects of commercialism suddenly vanished, people would find themselves sitting on the cold ground naked, wondering where everything went.
Obscene Non-Profits
Those who rail against profits and "greed" seldom stop to think through what they are saying, much less go check the facts. Most of the great American fortunes-- Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, etc. -- came from finding more efficient ways to produce a product or service...
‘Obscene’ Profits
Profits are certainly without honor among the intelligentsia. The very word produces negative reactions, even from people who cannot give you a single reason why money carrying that label is worse than money called by other names. Many professional athletes and...
The Road to Wealth
Why are we a rich nation? It's tempting to suggest our wealth is a result of bountiful natural resources. However, if bountiful resources were the source of wealth, South America and Africa would be rich instead of being mired in poverty. Hong Kong, Japan and England,...
A Tale of Two Crypts
The discovery of Saddam Hussein in a crypt-like hole, hidden by bricks and dirt, in a farmhouse in a small town near Tikrit brings to mind the story of another Iraqi who also hid from the authorities by literally going underground. That Iraqi is Jawad Amir Sayyid, 45,...
Ban Internet Taxes? The Taxman Clicketh
One of Feulner's Laws of Public Policy reads: "There are no permanent victories in Washington." These days, we're seeing that law borne out over Internet taxation.This looked settled years ago. Congress has voted twice--in 1998 and 2001--to ban any taxes on Internet...
The “Fun-Loving” Terrorist Who Was Good to His Mother
The news last month that police had arrested Sajid Badat at his home in Gloucester, England, shook many Britons. The charges against him concerned his training with al-Qaida in Afghanistan and his possessing PETN explosives, the same substance would-be shoe bomber...
A New Prescription For Cutting Costs
The solution to the high cost of prescription drugs, we are told by Democrats and Republicans alike, is more government intervention. Well, if we're going to use government muscle to lower our medical expenses, why not go all the way? Thus my proposal: Outlaw...
Radical U.N. Tax Plans Threaten America
Many politicians seem to think that the answer to every alleged problem is higher taxes. Howard Dean, for instance, has said he would repeal the Bush tax cuts -- even though this would boost the average family's tax burden by nearly $2,000. This initiative sounds...
Killing Arafat
After years of duplicitous dealing and overt support of terrorism the Israelis finally started talking about removing Arafat from the Middle East peace process, killing him if necessary. They have removed the killing option some months ago, but the fact that the...
A Giant Step to Improving “Social Security”
Last April, I had the opportunity to sit across a table from President Bush and discuss his plans for the economy. I asked him what his most important policy priorities were, and he gave me a refreshingly simple and direct answer: "In the first term we're going to cut...
Saddam Husseim — Man in a Hole!
Talk about going down in a blaze of glory. Despite Saddam Hussein's stated intention to resist the U.S.-led coalition, the U.S. Army 4th Infantry Division found him in a 6-foot by 8-foot "spider hole" just large enough for a man to lie down, 10 miles south of Tikrit,...
The U.S. Supreme Court Against the Constitution
Lawlessness usually conjures up images of a wild frontier or mobs in the streets. But the painful reality is that the supreme examples of lawlessness in our times are in the august and sedate chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States. If you think the issue...
Campaign-Finance Reform Attacks Victims of Government Corruption
In upholding the major provisions of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, the Supreme Court has openly declared that it is legitimate to curtail freedom of speech "marginally" in order to fight government corruption. But the sad reality is that the new laws not...
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