Israel's proposed border fence, a necessary physical separation between a lawful nation and its homicidal neighbors, is a powerful symbol of the political gulf separating the West from the Arab world. When Israel was founded, its inhabitants established the only...
POLITICS
The Economics of Mass Destruction
Speech by Donald L. Luskin given at the Russell 20-20 Association Annual Meeting, May 7, 2003 I earn my living as an economist. I try to forecast how economic policies and ideas in the hands of government, business, media and academia move the world and move markets....
Is the Penguin Contaminated?
If there's one thing the open-source community is known for, it's chutzpah. In a recent online petition, more than 1500 Linux users told the SCO Group, which owns intellectual property rights to key components of the Unix operating system, to sue them. This show of...
Bailing Out Non-Performing Airlines
As U.S troops rushed into Baghdad last month, American politicians rushed toward a very different objective: Bailing out the ailing airline industry.Hard hit by a quartet of calamities -- recession, terrorism, war and SARS -- airline executives warned of financial...
Investing and Gambling
Earlier this month, William Bennett -- the high-profile Republican "morality" advocate -- was outed in the media as a big-time gambler, a high-roller who made and lost millions in the casinos. There was the usual tempest in the public teapot, with Democrats attacking...
America’s Double Standard on Terrorism Against Israel
Recent events have rekindled simmering feelings in Israel that its chief ally and supporter -- America -- actively applies a glaring double standard when it comes to how to deal with the terrorist threat facing the citizens of both nations. This issue was thrust back...
Ten Years Later
A decade ago -- in May 1993 -- this column first mentioned unusually bright little children who are also unusually late in beginning to speak. Unknown to me at the time, this set in motion some remarkable developments which have not yet run their course. Letters from...
Tax Unfairness
It's not often one can say France's tax policy make more sense than ours.After all, in 2000, the average Frenchman paid 54 percent of his income in state and federal taxes, while the average American paid 42 percent. That, of course, is one reason why our economy is...
Tax Cut Sausage
It is often said that the legislation process is like watching sausage being made: disgusting. What is left off this analogy, however, is that sausage can be very tasty. We have just seen a good example of tasty sausage being made in the tax area. Although the process...
Missing Manners
In a recent column, Judith Martin, otherwise known as "Miss Manners," pondered "why a society composed of people angling to get on television to confess their disappointments or, now that we have reality television, demonstrate their shortcomings, would defend privacy...
A Sign of the Times
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. That was certainly true of a recent photo of a little 7-year-old boy holding a sign demanding more money for the schools and holding his fist in the air. He was part of a demonstration organized by his teachers, and...
Useful Idiots
The term "useful idiots" has been attributed to Lenin, as a description of those mindless people in the Western democracies who would always find ways to excuse whatever the Soviet Union did. Columnist Mona Charen's new book "Useful Idiots" shows that such people are...
Deformed Tax Reform
President Bush's proposal to eliminate the double taxation on dividends was simple, moral, and innocent -- a lot like Jefferson Smith, the James Stewart character in Frank Capra's classic film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And just like Smith, Bush's proposal got...
The Individual’s Right to Bear Arms
Last December, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld California's ban on assault weapons. Writing for the Court, Judge Stephen Reinhardt held that the Second Amendment only protected the state's "collective" right to own...
Senate’s Sunset Provision: A Hollow Victory for Bush’s Tax Plan
The White House won a hollow victory in the Senate last week on its tax bill. The bill will do almost nothing for growth and could even be counterproductive, owing to harmful tax increases included in the package. In defense of the Senate, it was in an untenable...
Warren Buffet Lies from the Pulpit
Ah, the beloved Warren Buffett. He's the second richest man in the world according to Forbes, and he's America's self-appointed corporate virtue czar, the Bill Bennett of the executive suite. He's the one whose folksy Berkshire Hathaway Corporation annual reports...
The Road to Victory Goes Through Tehran
President Bush has declared the end of "major combat operations" in Iraq, but he has not declared victory in the War on Terrorism--and that's a good thing, because the largest and most important battle in that war still remains to be fought. The road to victory goes...
Another Quarter, Another Crisis?
Yesterday's market drop had the odor of an all-too-familiar panic about it. Once again, it feels as if the fragile fabric of policy stability in the Bush administration is threatening to unravel -- as if we're headed toward another "constitutional crisis" of the type...
Journalistic Principles Absent at the New York Times
In the old movie classic "Citizen Kane," there is a dramatic scene where a political opponent has just found a way to thwart Charles Foster Kane's bid to be elected governor. "This should be a lesson to you," the politician says to Kane. "But you are going to need...
The New York Times: Unfit to Print
The New York Times' famous motto -- "All the News That's Fit to Print" -- has been dishonored by the revelation that one of its own reporters has been printing stuff that he made up or stolen from other publications. Isolated scandals can strike anywhere. But this was...
Castro’s Cult of Sycophants
"Cuba is an anachronism in our hemisphere, an anachronism on the face of the Earth," Secretary of State Colin Powell remarked earlier this month. "And the whole international community should be condemning Cuba." Who could disagree? In a ruthless crackdown just four...
Capitalism for Doctors
The following is an excerpt of an address given by CAC Chairman Nicholas Provenzo to the Colorado Medical Society on May 4, 2003. Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Morning. I thank you for your kind attention this morning and I thank the staff and directors of the Colorado...
Prescription for Less Wealth
Maytag recently announced that it's moving its Galesburg, Ill., production facility to Mexico. A group called Americans Against NAFTA has protested Maytag's decision. Spokesman Russ Anderson said, "We want to spread the word of what we believe Maytag is doing and the...
God, Buggery, and Mister Rogers
Here's what George Bernard Shaw said about religious fundamentalists: "There are scores of human insects who are ready at a moment's notice to reveal the will of God on every possible subject." A few carloads of those insects were swarming recently outside Heinz Hall...
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