When future policymakers want to understand the law and economics surrounding one of the most watched antitrust cases in history, they will look to "Microsoft, Antitrust and the New Economy," a recent compilation of essays published by the Milken Institute. The book's...
FBI directors don't make a habit of breaking bread with organizations their agents may soon be investigating, perhaps even closing. Robert S. Mueller III, however, is about to make precisely this blunder: On June 28, he is scheduled to deliver a lunch talk to the...
Every argument opposing capital punishment -- e.g., it fails to deter would-be murderers, it's administered according to racial/economic bias, it kills innocent people -- evades the fundamental basis for why state execution, when used with discretion, is just. One...
Why do so many people hate Martha Stewart? How does a home-decorating and entertaining expert with a sweet, wholesome public persona come to be portrayed as a major cultural villain? Consider the past week's media frenzy over charges that Stewart engaged in "insider...
Politics, according to an old adage, is "the art of the possible." But, during election years especially, politics has increasingly become the art of the impossible. What politicians promise to all the various groups adds up to more than anyone can possibly deliver....
School's out. What did your children learn this year? Across the country, one poisonous lesson was pumped into the systems of self-esteem-inflated students: There is no such thing as failure. Christine Pelton, a now-famous former biology teacher at Piper High School...
Terry Barton, a U.S. Forest Service worker, was charged this week with intentionally setting the largest wildfire in Colorado history. It is a black mark on the beleaguered federal agency. But it's not the blackest mark. Last summer, four young firefighters died at...
What's so good about democracy -- generally understood as having trust in the general will of a democratic people, as expressed by a vote of the majority, to make all important decisions? If a majority of our 535 congressmen votes for one measure or another, is that...
IN ITS MOST RECENT IMPOTENT attempt to put an end to the suicidal butchery arriving from the Palestinian territories, the Israeli government has proposed a fence that would run from the Salem checkpoint in the north to Kafr Qasem in the south, while another stretch of...
After any breakdown of a public institution, politicians feel the urge to "fix" things so it doesn't happen again. Often, however, the cure is worse than the disease. That's the case with the proposed remedies following the collapse of Enron. Why does Congress need to...
Despite the fanfare of a televised speech at the National Press Club in Washington, a very old and hackneyed set of proposals was unveiled as a "new vision" for the creation of "affordable housing." The speech was by Richard Ravitch, co-chairman with former...
Yesterday the Supreme court released its decision in Atkins v. Virginia, regarding the propriety of executing the mentally retarded. The court reversed the death sentence of a retarded murderer, arguing that his diminished mental precluded him from acting with the...
Today I watched a bizarre spectacle. Attending a hearing of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, I bore witness as, one-by-one, five United States senators of both political parties made the case for subsidizing perpetual failure. I saw them...
Like three blind mice, Dick Gephardt, Hillary Clinton and James Carville are running around saying they want their eyes opened about what's going on in this country about terrorism. House Minority Leader Gebhardt wants an investigation into "what the White House knew...
California's Governor Gray Davis is in hot water over his acceptance of $25,000 from Oracle Corporation following the state's no-bid $95 million dollar e-government deal with the company. And while the governor probably wishes he had never heard of e-government,...
WorldCom has rallied as much as 53% in the two weeks since it was ignominiously ejected from the S&P 500 Index on May 14. Low-priced securities of distressed companies are often subject to such large moves in percentage terms. But WorldCom's rally following its...
Each spring, the State Department issues "Patterns of Global Terrorism," its major report on the problem it defines as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended...
Today, the Senate Committee on Finance will vote on a bill introduced by Sen, Charles Grassley of Iowa that would make it illegal for a US firms to re-incorporate overseas to avoid the tax bias against corporate overseas income. CMDC considers this and similar...
One of the many reasons why economists are unpopular is that they keep reminding people that things have costs, that there is no free lunch. People already know that -- but they like to forget it when there is something they have their hearts set on. Economists don't...
Today, more than a million people in Zimbabwe are starving, and up to three million face the imminent prospect of starvation. This has not yet excited much attention in the West. Zimbabwe, after all, is far away from the centers of American interest; all of our top...
Thanks to infighting in the Senate, it appears that voting on legislation that would destroy the lives of life-saving heroes will be delayed until next year. Americans cannot afford to leave the fate of these individuals to legislative chance, however; in the name of...
What causes poverty? A Santa Monica, Calif., high school teacher required his class to write an essay to address this question. Steve Miller, one of his students, attributed three things to poverty -- violent crime, government programs and irresponsible breeding. "In...
Remember those public-service ads with the politically correct cast of actors staring into the camera and stating, "I am an American"? Something always bothered me about that campaign. It was the snarly attitude that many of the cast members had while supposedly...
One of the problems that urgently needs some serious thought by President Bush's proposed new Homeland Security Department is the problem of what to do about enemies already living within this country. Our legal system has not yet faced the grim implications of that...
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