A year ago I told investors to sell technology stocks and reinvest in long-term Treasury bonds. That bet turned out very well on both sides: The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index is down more than 30% in 2002 while the total return for 10-year Treasurys has been about 18%...
POLITICS
Zoning and the The “New” Property Rights
Last Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in the case of George Washington University v. District of Columbia, upholding the District's zoning restrictions on GW's land use. The case was by no means a landmark decision, yet the...
Markets, the Dollar, and the “War on Terrorism”
Investors should expect continued weakness in the dollar over the coming months and year, by 8-12% against most major currencies. Dollar weakness this year already has exerted a bearish influence on U.S. stocks and will continue to do so with a lag. If, as we expect,...
Pulling Racism Out of a Helmet in the National Football League
When the regular season of the National Football League concludes and coaches are fired and replaced, an annual tribalist ritual accompanies these activities. It involves advocates of "diversity" crying that there are too few black head coaches, and that more of them...
“Affirmative Action” Quotas on Trial, Part II
When the case for affirmative action in college and university admissions is argued before the Supreme Court this year, the justices are likely to hear many theories, many assertions -- and little evidence. People who are for or against affirmative action are usually...
“Affirmative Action” Quotas on Trial
Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to rule on affirmative action in college and university admissions, will this issue be settled at long last or will the justices come up with some murky compromise, like the Bakke decision of 25 years ago, which has led to a...
Human Cloning: Raelians vs. Reality
Congress is currently working up a list of dreadful penalties for anyone who even attempts human cloning, bandying about threats of 10-year prison terms and ruinous fines. The message to scientists is simple: create new life and you forfeit your own. Facing such...
Politically Correct Tax Talk
There's a big tax debate coming, with President Bush scheduled to announce a package of new tax cuts today. And it looks like we're not going to be able to talk about it without falling into the morass of politically correct speech. I'm not talking about the usual...
Arafat the Magnanimous
In light of the most recent twin acts of barbarism deliberately directed against Israeli innocents (twenty-two dead, scores injured--many missing body parts--so far) and proudly claimed by Arafat's own Fatah al- Aqsa affiliate, it's time to take a closer look at some...
The Swedish Invasion: Does a Mixed Economy Lead to Domestic Bliss
"We want to produce the soundtrack to the ongoing war against capitalism." That's the creed of Sweden's new garage band The (International) Noise Conspiracy. They're avowed socialists, to the point of caricature. A comically self-indulgent manifesto posted on the...
What Does the Arabic Word “Jihad” Mean?
What does the Arabic word "jihad" mean? One answer came last month, when Saddam Hussein had his Islamic leaders appeal to Muslims worldwide to join his jihad to defeat the "wicked Americans" should they attack Iraq; then he himself threatened the United States with...
The “Roadmap to Peace” in the Middle East
With whom are the Israelis supposed to make peace? The proposed "roadmap to peace" in the Middle East has an intrinsic unknown. Peace must involve at least two parties. On one side we have the Israelis who are genuinely interested in peace, but who is on the other...
Dangers Ahead–From the Right
This year may be long remembered as the year when either the wisdom or the lack of wisdom of our leaders decided the fate of Americans yet unborn. The undeclared war against this country by nations harboring and fostering terrorists sworn to our destruction became...
Dangers Ahead–From the Left
This is almost certain to be a historic year -- whether because we begin to break the back of international terrorism, beginning with Iraq, or because international terrorism begins scoring major victories, beginning with North Korea's brazen nuclear challenge. What...
Republic? Democracy? What’s the Difference?
In the long run though, a democracy will always become a tyranny, either by majority, or if the majority screw things up so badly and a tyrant seizes power from the ensuing chaos. The overriding characteristic of democracy is subjectivism and that is its fatal flaw.
The Balkanization of College Campuses
The New York Civil Rights Commission (NYCRC) has put out a report that documents how "little attention has been given to the color-conscious policies of the colleges and universities that permit or encourage, and, oftentimes, fund a balkanized campus environment." The...
Missile Defense: Self Interest vs. Diplomacy
President Bush calls it a "modest" first step. True--but it's one that promises to make Americans much safer in the long run. Specifically, the president's decision to deploy a missile defense means that our total vulnerability to missile attack--yes, total; we could...
The Republicans Inconsistency
New Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist wants to promote Medical Savings Accounts as health care reform. Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) allow individuals to set aside money tax-free and roll it over every year to pay everyday medical expenses. The accounts are then...
The Pretense Behind State Universities: Research over Education
Some state universities are having smaller and smaller proportions of their costs paid for by the states, and some people are talking about the possibility of their ceasing to be state universities at all. The University of Texas at Austin, for example, gets more...
New Senate Leader Must ‘Do No Harm’
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is well known for being the Senate's only doctor. A heart surgeon by training, Sen. Frist has occasionally made the news for coming to the rescue during his tenure in office, including an incident this weekend, where he...
Goodbye to Frank Gehry’s Bad Joke
After Sept. 11, a few intellectuals optimistically predicted the "end of irony" -- that is, the end of the pseudo-intellectual pose of cynicism and skepticism endemic in our turn-of-the-century culture. The end of irony is not quite upon us, but at least one recent...
The NFL’s Race Problem
On Saturday, the New York Jets and Indianapolis Colts will face off in the opening round of the 2003 NFL playoffs. The coaches of the two teams, the Colts' Tony Dungy and New York's Herman Edwards, will have a reunion of sorts, since both men worked in Tampa Bay,...
Time to Privatize the Buses
New York City's recent brush with a transit strike should be a wake-up call for city and state leaders. It's time to inject private competition into Gotham's public transportation system to control costs and make the city less vulnerable to threats every few years...
Hillary Clinton’s Intellectual Bankruptcy
After learning that the Republicans were dumping Trent Lott as Majority Leader in the Senate, Hillary Clinton commented, "What [Lott] did was state publicly what many of them [i.e. Republicans] have stated privately over many years in the back roads and back streets...
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