A cloud is hanging over this year's Christmas season: the cloud of recession. You can see it in weak Christmas shopping sales and the desperate deals being offered by car makers. You can see it in the words of a shopper interviewed on television, who explained her...
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
Who are the “Wealthiest One Percent of Taxpayers”?
So who are these cads, this "wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers," anyway? We heard a lot about this select group of villains in the presidential debates. Indeed, certain politicians almost seem to hold their noses, their voices dripping with disdain, as they deplore...
The Counter-Money Laundering Act is an Attack on Privacy and Liberty to Help Prop Up Welfare State Regimes
Congress has renewed its efforts to combat international money laundering this past August. In the House of Representatives, Representative Jim Leach (R-IA) has introduced H.R. 3886, the International Counter-Money Laundering Act, which has moved swiftly through the...
The Medicare Bureaucracy is a Frankenstein Monster That is Destroying American Medicine
The complex system for Medicare reimbursement for physicians is based on over 7,000 medical treatment codes. You know we're in big trouble in medicine today when there's a code not only for flatulence, but one for the guy standing downwind as well.I'm not making this...
How the Left Lives On The Backs of the Poor
The privations and sufferings of the poor have long been central themes in the vision of the political left. That is what attracted many of us to the left in our youth. But the actual consequences of the agenda of the left on the poor -- and on others -- is what...
Alice in Florida
Even those of us who have been complaining for years about the bias and shallowness of the media should admit that we never expected the media to be quite so grossly biased or so unbelievably shallow as they have been about the outcome of the recent presidential...
How Washington Should Respond to Instability in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, a member of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, has led his country to the brink of implosion. His policies flout freedom and the rule of law and have ruined a once-healthy economy. Washington should urge Mugabe to...
Spontaneity versus Whim Worship
What's the fundamental difference between being a whim worshiper and being spontaneous? A whim worshipper acts on whatever urges move him, at the moment they first move him. He does not stop and use reason to evaluate what he's doing. A spontaneous person is capable...
Tax Cuts: Now More Than Ever
President-elect George W. Bush is being advised by his political foes to abandon tax cuts. This step, they tell him, is the only way to heal the wounds caused by weeks of legal wrangling and partisan rhetoric. Yet abandoning tax cuts would be a big mistake, both...
Jackson, Sharpton, and Gore Play Racial Rope-A-Dope
Democrats have no constituency more loyal than black Americans. Much of that loyalty is delivered by black elected officials, civil-rights organizations and church leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. During the last election, these people did a yeoman's job...
The Drive Against Responsibility Supports Psychology without a Mind
It used to be a raging debate in psychology: Are human beings primarily determined by physiology -- or by other factors such as environment, family, thinking habits, etc.? Today, such a debate is nearly non-existent. Instead of looking for the role of...
Mr. Putin Goes to Havana
This past week, Russian president Vladimir Putin visited communist Cuba on a diplomatic visit to that tropical paradise, that CNN commentators love to gush about, Cuba. [Now if only CNN would only move there permanently!]Many have questioned the purpose of the trip,...
Excellent Company or Excellent Stock?
"Buy the stock - it's a good company." This oft-repeated platitude is one that's very popular on Wall Street, but it's also one that I'm sick of hearing it because it's not necessarily a useful guide for investors. A major study by Michelle Clayman, entitled "In...
Hoisted by Their Own Petard
Given the inevitable liberal attack on the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that settles the election contest, it is important to be clear about what the Supreme Court did and who is ultimately responsible for its ruling. There are many pernicious lines of attack, but I...
Back to the Land of the Bromide
While the election crisis was still upon us, I hated it as much as anyone else. As a columnist, I probably hated it more. How do you write about politics when the news reverses direction every two hours? But now that it's all over, I'm getting downright nostalgic...
Time for Common Sense Again
Now that the election is over, can we talk sense? "Campaign finance reform" is a great political issue for an election year, but it makes no sense otherwise. What is a campaign supposed to do -- and how will campaign finance reform affect how well it does it? A...
The Myth of “Emotional Intelligence”
Q: There's a new corporate term in use lately -- "emotional intelligence." People are even being tested for their "emotional intelligence" levels. Is there any value in this? A: The very concept of "emotional intelligence" is preposterous. Your intelligence does not...
The U.S. Child and Family Services Gestapo Targets Parents
This Christmas season, take a moment to say a prayer for the many innocent people sent to prison by injustice. You can safely say, "There, but for the grace of God, go I," because the myriad causes of well-intentioned people have made it possible for anyone, no matter...
Law and Order Tyranny
If you live in Albuquerque, N.M., and you have teen-agers who might be inclined to raid your wine, beer or whiskey cupboard while you are away, rent your housing, don't buy. The city council has recently passed a law [September 2000] that lets the city seize your home...
Brace Yourselves for Floridation
One of my favorite bands, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, recently penned an ode to "Californication." The term refers to the spread of the Golden State's worst attributes: smog, strip malls, drive-bys, and celebrity worship. "It's understood that Hollywood sells...
Dangers Lurk in War on Crime
The war against crime is getting out of hand and needs to be reassessed before the Constitution is torn to shreds. Both lawmakers and law enforcers have forgotten that the ends don't justify the means. In the determination to pursue crime -- drug-related crime -- ever...
The U.S. Supreme Court Puts An End To The Florida Vote “Count” Farce
If the Supreme Court of the United States had not stepped in to stop the endless re-re-recounts in Florida, George W. Bush might have won a presidential election more times than Franklin D. Roosevelt -- and all in one year. What has been even worse than all the legal...
Men Are Not From Mars and Women Are Not From Venus
Q: I observe much "male-bashing" in today's America, and I also observe that it has become widely acceptable. (The "Lifetime" channel on cable TV provides one poignant example of this). I don't mean the usual, superficial "well-that's-men-for-you" sort of criticism of...
Confessions of a Venture Capitalist: Inside the High-Stakes World of Start-up Financing
I referred to the magic of Silicon Valley. That magic-an intoxicating mix of money, imagination, and inspiration-had its origin in the semiconductor boom of the 1970s, when dozens of companies seized on possibilities made ripe by Intel's development of the first...
Separating the Wheat From the Chad: Election 2000 Facts versus Myths
Elections are supposed to be decided by voters on election day, not by judges later on. But once state and local courts inject themselves into post-election controversies, without any legal justification, the only institution that can get rid of their interference is...
No Stinkin’ Badges: The Case Against Judicial Activism
In the old movie classic "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," armed men confront Humphrey Bogart, claiming to be police. "If you're policemen," he asked, "where are your badges?" "We don't need no stinkin' badges!" is the reply. On December 1st, the Supreme Court of the...
Law and Economics
Rather than my usual fall schedule of teaching in the Economics Department at George Mason University, I taught "The Economic Foundations of Legal Studies" at the university's School of Law to first-year law students. Economics is no stranger at George Mason's Law...
The Real Grinches are Environmentalist Luddites Who Stand In the Way of a Free-Market For Electricity
Windmills and candles and warm woolen mittens. Staticky sparks from the fur of small kittens. Campfires and solar panels and thermal paddings. These are a few of the favorite things that radical environmentalists would rather rely on for warmth, light, and electricity...
Is Microsoft a Hypocrite?
I was saddened to see the lead article in last Tuesday's (12/5/00) Wall St. Journal "Microsoft Tries to Lob Monkey Wrench Into AOL-Time Warner Deal." In the story, reporters alleged Microsoft might be cooperating with the Federal Trade Commission to provide evidence...
Crazy Double Standards
The Federal Trade Commission has released its year-long study showing how Hollywood's film industry, the music industry and the video-game industry have been deliberately targeting and marketing all manner of filth and violence to America's children. No less an expert...
Cracking the Value Code: How Successful Businesses Are Creating Wealth in the New Economy
The following is an excerpt from the book Cracking the Value Code: How Successful Businesses Are Creating Wealth in the New Economy by Richard E.S. Boulton, Barry D. Libert and Steve M. Samek:How much does the New Economy weigh? Answer: A lot less than you might...
Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
Some books are good, some are bad, but very few are real gems. One of these few gems is the recently published book "The Mystery of Capital" by Hernando de Soto. The subtitle tells what it is really about: "Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere...
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