I have touched the third rail, and it is made of gold. For millennia gold has excited mankind’s passions, goading us to the heights of achievement and the depths of evil. Now, since I’ve been writing about gold’s role in the international monetary...
POLITICS
The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded, and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of “conservatism” and “liberalism” which had lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men. – AYN RAND
The Coming Telecom Capacity Crunch
In my past column, I explained why a telecom rebound is likely to occur faster than most people expect: the continued explosive demand for bandwidth, the reopening of capital markets courtesy of lower interest rates, increased telecom revenues resulting from price...
T For Two
On Friday investors will have to decide whether to exchange their shares of AT&T for shares of the AT&T Wireless tracking stock. When the big index funds decide, it will move the market. In the exchange offer that expires Friday, AT&T will accept up to 427...
The Executor’s Song: Part 5, Life Insurance, IRA’s, and Real Estate
Author’s Note: This is the fifth in a six part series of personal finance columns on the subject of being the executor of an estate. These columns are based on my own personal experiences in this regard. Individuals should consult a professional advisor and take...
Bush Energy Plan Caves In
President Bush’s newly released national energy plan offers us more of what already threatens this country. No, I am not talking about the president’s plans to allow oil drilling in Alaska, or to build more gas pipelines, or to license more nuclear power...
Home-Schooling Under Siege
There’s nothing like stiff competition to bring out the worst in government. Nowhere does this prove more true than in the battle between home-schooling parents and public school bureaucrats. In Maryland, local prosecutors are moving forward with a...
Put Broadcast Spectrum Under New Management
Last October, then-President Bill Clinton tried to prod federal regulators to carve out space in the nation’s airwaves for the next generation of wireless technology — technology that promises high-speed Internet access with simple hand-held devices. For...
Why Should You Worry About Medical Privacy?
Last year a sophisticated Internet hacker took control of the University of Washington Medical Center’s network and downloaded the admissions records of 4,000 cardiology patients. Among the thousands of pieces of private information he downloaded were names,...
Know When to Gold ‘Em
It never ceases to amaze me the way financial markets all fit together, like perfectly meshing gears in some infinitely complex machine. The day of the bottom in the yield on the long bond was March 22 — the very day of the bottom in the Dow Jones Industrial...
Fee-for-service Health Care Makes a Comeback
Remember when you could choose to go to any doctor, pay a reasonable fee for your medical service, and not worry about co-pays, deductibles, and some distant stranger authorizing or denying the care prescribed by your physician? If so, you have lived long enough to...
America’s Descent Into Servitude I
The Texas Legislature is currently considering a bill that will mandate “volunteer” work for all college and university students in the state. The result of this bill will be to introduce “volunteerism” as a component of college education. The...
‘Tis the Season for Small Caps?
“Holy Cow!” That’s the polite version of my exclamation when I heard that the US economy grew by 2% in the first quarter of this year. This rate of growth is really nothing special, usually not cause for excitement, and not even close to the rapid...
Global Warming: Beneficial To Human Civilization
Would some degree of warming be bad for most societies and natural environments? Probably not. “During the 20th century,” writes Dr. Patrick Michaels, “we have already proceeded more than half way to doubling the natural carbon dioxide greenhouse...
California Stealing on a Blackout Day
A reader in Michigan says that he has been living in retirement on $15,000 a year — about $5,000 from Social Security and about $10,000 from stocks he owns in Southern California Edison. But now that the California government has forced Southern California...
The Executor’s Song: Part 4, Getting the Estate Organized
Publisher’s Note: This is the fourth in a six part series of personal finance columns on the subject of being the executor of an estate. These columns are based on my own personal experiences in this regard. Individuals should consult a professional advisor and...
Eureka! Gold!
Yesterday I wrote in this column that we had taken a position, as advisor, in a couple of gold stocks — Newmont Mining and Homestake Mining. It’s been over 20 years since I’ve traded gold stocks — doing it again took me back to my earliest days...
Social Security and the Stock Market
Recent fluctuations in the stock market have been used by some liberal politicians as a reason why Social Security should not be privatized. What if someone invests retirement money in the stock market, instead of in Social Security, and then retires at a point when...
Que Pasa, Senor Bush?
If you thought ethnic pandering disappeared from the White House with the silverware and the Clintons, think again. Last weekend, President Bush proudly delivered the first White House radio address in Spanish. “Republican strategists” — media-hungry...
The Evil of Animal “Rights”
Scientists are closer than ever to finding cures for AIDS, cancer and other deadly illnesses. But more research and testing are needed and much of it must be done on animals. But will it occur? Not if the animal “rights” terrorists plaguing Huntingdon Life...
Politically Correct Racism vs. Justice Thomas
Ebony, a monthly black magazine, puts out an annual list of the “100+ Most Influential Black Americans.” First, the magazine’s criteria. Influential means, “1. Does the individual transcend his or her position and command widespread national...
About Face on the Market
Yesterday I wrote in this column, “So many people are so totally hypnotized by the “don’t fight the Fed” mantra that it wouldn’t surprise me to see a brief rally here, back toward the highs achieved two weeks ago. Maybe a narrow defensive...
The U.N. versus “Human Rights”
Nothing could show more clearly the United Nations’ lack of commitment toward curbing human rights abuses than its absurd refusal to re-elect the United States to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. This diplomatic slap in the face was compounded by the fact...
America’s Amnesia
Arthur M. Schlesinger wrote in “The Disuniting of America”: “History is to the nation … as memory is to the individual. An individual deprived of memory becomes disoriented and lost, not knowing where he has been or where he is going, so a...
At Least the FED Didn’t Blow It
At least the Fed didn’t blow it. The FOMC‘s 50 basis point rate cut yesterday gave the markets just enough oxygen to keep breathing until further evidence of a deteriorating economy necessitates the next rate cut. It could have been worse. And based on the...
We Are All “Drop Outs”
Hats off to Jackson Toby, who wrote in the Weekly Standard what few have dared to say in the past three decades: “Let them drop out.” He argues that too many students are finding nothing but frustration and resentment at being trapped for hours every day...
On Race Relations, Color Me Confused
I’m confused. Director Spike Lee calls racism America’s “No. 1 problem.” So he makes a film called “Bamboozled,” which argues that white network executives intentionally put on the worst images of blacks. Yet, when Lee asked to use...
“Big Oil” and The High Cost of Demons
Since it has long been known that the best defense is a good offense, it should not be surprising that politicians who have created an economic mess should begin loudly denouncing somebody else as the cause of the public’s problems. Last year, the problem was a...
California’s Green Profiteers
Last week, a quarter of a million Californians had their power cut in a new wave of rolling blackouts. As one official admitted, “This is the situation everyone feared. Here it is May 7, and we already have rolling outages.” This is only a warm-up for the...
Wal-Mart is Wal-Smart
The world’s biggest retailer proves the New Economy isn’t just for tech companies. To be at the leading edge of the New Economy, a company doesn’t have to make semiconductors or optical networking components, or even map the human genome. As much as...
The Executor’s Song: Part 3, Performing Triage for the Estate
Publisher’s Note: This is the third in a series of personal finance columns on the subject of being the executor of an estate. These columns are based on my own personal experiences in this regard. Individuals should consult a professional advisor and take their...
Diversify Your Portfolio with Tech’s Leaders
Jack Welch, the retiring CEO of General Electric, may be the greatest corporate manager of all time. I’m not comparing him to inventors or entrepreneurs who created great things out of nothing, but as a manager who can run a business, develop talent and...
Estate Planning: Part 1, An Unhappy and Burdensome Task
Author’s Note: This is the first in a series of personal finance columns on the subject of being the executor of an estate. These columns are based on my own personal experiences in this regard. Individuals should consult a professional advisor and take their...
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