On Sunday, February 3rd, Yasser Arafat published an 1,100-word op-ed column, “The Palestinian Vision of Peace,” in The New York Times. In it, he wrote that the Palestinian people yearn to live “as an equal neighbor alongside Israel with peace and...
POLITICS
A Second Look at Social Security’s “Trust Fund”
“When it comes to waging war on terrorism, the president has our total support,” says Rep. John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., a member of the House Budget Committee. “But national security and homeland security need not come at the expense of Social...
Prime Mover of Business: Jack Welch
Jack Welch is arguably the most famous CEO in the world. His 20-year reign as the head of General Electric brought the company from bureaucratic behemoth to dynamic and revered powerhouse. During his tenure, GE market value grew from $13 billion to $500 billion. In...
Attack U.S. and Get Paid with Taxpayer Money
A donor conference for Afghanistan convened in Tokyo last week had every appearance of being humane, moral, and sensible. Representatives from sixty governments pledged to help rebuild Afghanistan by committing at least $1.7 billion in 2002 and $10.2 billion over the...
Top Ten Myths About Campaign Finance Reform
Myth #1: “Shays-Meehan is constitutional.” Any bill that attempts to “equalize” citizens’ political speech through criminal and civil penalties for “excessive” or “unfair” speech violates the First Amendment, which...
Economics of Investing: Hypothesizing about the Efficient Markets Hypothesis
Over the past couple of years, events like the Internet and more recently, the Enron and Global Crossing debacles, have spurred people to reconsider the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, “EMH.” For those unfamiliar with EMH, here’s a brief textbook...
Multiculturalist Reporting: One Man’s News is Another Man’s Fiction
You may think you know what happened on Jan. 3, 2002 when Israeli Navy Seals seized the Karine A, a cargo ship carrying 50 tons of contraband Katyusha rockets, anti-tank missiles, mortars, mines, explosives, and sniper rifles. You may think the ship’s captain...
The Terrorist’s Best Friend
The events of the past few weeks in Israel have offered a timeless lesson on the real cause of terrorism and the real meaning of the “peace process.” The pattern of these events is crystal clear: Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority have escalated...
Enronic Cleansing: Be Warned
I alienated some friends and clients when I e-mailed a TrendMacro Live! note last week warning of a dangerous new phase of the Enron scandal. Everyone is understandably eager to round up the bad guys and hang
Behind the Environmental Working Group
Among the political chattering classes, there’s a big buzz over a tiny activist organization called the Environmental Working Group. Both liberals and conservatives, including the left-leaning New York Times editorial page and the right-leaning Wall Street...
New Words for the Same Old Hustle
What would Martin Luther King Jr. have made of a recent ad last month (Jan 21) in the Boston Globe? On Page 10, to honor King’s memory and legacy, a full-page ad reproduced the peroration of his unforgettable 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial: “I have a...
Enron, Tyco, and Accounting for Conglomerates
In the wake of the Enron scandal, investors are all of a sudden focusing intensely on the integrity of corporate accounting. So self-righteous pundits and politicians are elbowing each other for space at the head of the lynch mob demanding new regulations to enforce...
Who Pays The Tariffs?
As predicted, the steel industry has bellied up to the federal concession stand for all forms of relief and favors. The emotionally charged premise is that the steel industry is vital to our defense and economic strength. This same argument was successfully used by...
Defending the rights of John Q — Dr. John Q
John Q — a propaganda flick about an uninsured worker who forces doctors at gunpoint to treat his son — has reinvigorated the widespread misconception that health care should be a “right.” But believers in such a notion, and the politicians...
Snub the Tyrants and Grow Your Own
Allow me to suggest a New Year’s resolution you’ll thank me for: Grow your own tomatoes. As you’ll see, becoming a grower can be rewarding far beyond the sweet taste of your crop. The traditional extra benefits keep bringing many of us back season...
OPEC, Oil, and Energy Economics 101
We are all familiar with pundits from all corners decrying our dependence on foreign oil. Before the oil embargo in the 70’s and subsequent attempts to wean ourselves from OPEC, we were importing about 25% of our oil and now we are importing over 50%. This is...
Enron, Krugman, and the Public Intellectuals
The failure of Enron has had important impacts for its shareholders, creditors and business counterparties. There will be some important second-order impacts, too. Enron has already become an excuse for politicians and special interest groups to seek useless and...
For-Profit Schools: Profit’s not a Four-Letter Word
“It’s not ethically sound to make a profit off educating students in a school that serves the public, which a charter school is, using funds from public coffers.” That’s not a sentence from Mao’s Little Red Book. It’s from Philip...
Why is “Campaign Finance Reform” Popular–Amongst Politicians?
In its reckless disregard of the Constitution when it passed “campaign finance reform” legislation, the House of Representatives has demonstrated dramatically why we need real political reform. The First Amendment to the Constitution begins “Congress...
A Deadly Error
How well is the Bush administration conducting the war on terrorism? Overall, it deserves high grades, having shown an impressive seriousness of purpose, discipline, and vision. It made winning the war the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy and almost flawlessly...
The Media That Couldn’t Shoot Straight: How a Hand Gun Saved Lives
On January 16, 2002, a law student at Virginia’s Appalachian School of Law shot and killed the dean, a professor and another student, while wounding three others. How did the shooting spree end? According to the Los Angeles Times, “Other students tackled...
Biotech Comes Down With Enronitis
The biotech sector is sick. The industry that promises to cure cancer and AIDS can’t cure itself. And it’s all so sudden. All last year I thought favorably of biotech as a “defensive growth” sector — a group of high-risk/high-reward...
Who Is the Enemy?
With whom, or what, is the United States at war? The answer to this question has far-reaching implications for strategy, for public diplomacy, and for foreign and domestic policy alike. It may seem that the answer is obvious; but it is not. In the first few weeks...
A Sign of Things to Come? Expanding the Tobacco Industry Lawsuits Against All Industry
Let’s face it, we’re too damn fat and, this being America, someone should be sued! Professor Marion Nestle at New York University provides the target: “The function of the food industry is to get people to eat more, not less. It’s not...
Saudi Arabia: America’s Dysfunctional “Friend”
For Thanksgiving in 1990, former President George H.W. Bush went to Saudi Arabia to visit the 400,000 American soldiers stationed there as part of Operation Desert Shield. The Saudis welcomed Bush, but made it clear that no Christian worship — including grace...
American Taliban: No Excuse for Treason — But No Accountability Either
According to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, in reference to John Walker Lindh, the treasonous American Taliban fighter: “We may never know why he turned his back on our country and our values, but we cannot ignore that he did … Youth is not absolution for...
Sobering Up
When the stock market soared in the first two weeks of this new year, it seemed to validate a growing confidence that the economy was destined to overcome the tech-wreck and the recession, just as America had moved beyond the terrorist attacks of September 11....
The Illegal Alien Pander-lympics
There’s a rigged competition going on in politics that you won’t see on television this week. It’s the deceptive speed-spending race to fix our immigration enforcement woes. President Bush proposes boosting the Immigration and Naturalization...
The War on Terrorism and the War on Reality
Here is the painful dilemma America faces: If we don’t attack Iraq, we could risk a nuclear attack on New York or Washington by Iraqi-backed terrorists. But if we do attack Iraq, we could risk “alienating” our Arab and European allies and earning the...
The Education Bill
The compromise education bill just passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush provided some good political theater and even a little humor, with the president embracing Ted Kennedy. But what did it do for American education? Not much. The new legislation...
Looters In “Public Good” Suits
“They can stoke me with money,” said Senator Ted Kennedy, referring to how the Bush Administration can win his favor. “I’m an easy stoke.” Why can’t we just stoke him? Or, more importantly: stoke his ideas and policies? We should...
Enron Employees Must Shoulder Their Share of the Blame
To avoid “another Enron,” President George W. Bush proposes measures to “help” workers to protect their 401(k) money. Under Bush’s proposals, companies must allow workers, if they choose, to sell company stock after three years, a shorter...
Subscribe for free.
Latest pro-Capitalism goodness sent weekly to your email box.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.