Suppose one day you meet with a security specialist to safeguard your business. They're called "For Everyone's Defense" -- FED. Fed tells you what bad things could happen and how they'll protect you from them. You say okay and sign up. Your contract provides you with...
POLITICS
Missile Defense: No Time for Easy Assumptions
David Halberstam, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has compared ballistic missile defense to the Maginot Line, the wall built after World War I to protect France from German invasion: Brilliantly constructed. Thorough to a fault. But utterly useless against the real...
Laffer’s Curveball
Arthur Laffer's op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal (November 21, 2001) will set supply-side tongues wagging -- or more likely, supply-side teeth gnashing. The upshot is: Laffer is endorsing the idea of a 10-day federally underwritten suspension of state sales tax....
An INS Horror Story
The INS bureaucracy is a cesspool of elbow-rubbers, string-pullers, chest-puffers and cover-uppers who care more about protecting their backsides than upholding the law. Look no further than the man who currently heads the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service's...
The Trouble With ‘Timing’: It Doesn’t Work
In the stock market (as in much of life), the beginning of wisdom is admitting your ignorance. One of the many things you cannot know about stocks is exactly when they will go up or go down. Over the long term, stocks generally rise at a nice pace. History shows they...
Arianna Huffington is Wrong Again! Profit is a Virtue
It's tempting to accuse someone like columnist Arianna Huffington of profiting from capitalism, given the tirades she's launched at certain industries. Since she's attacking profit (alternately spelled "heinous"), I would expect she's raking in a sizable readership....
Protect Yourself Through Diversification
Warren Buffett, who was probably the greatest investor of the 20th century, is fond of quoting the salacious actress Mae West as saying, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful." In the market, such a motto would lead you to avoid diversification and instead...
World Trade Center to Fly Flag Over Aircraft Carrier Stennis
Thanks to a patriotic New York City cop, this flag will serve as a constant reminder to the Stennis’ warriors of the justness of our cause: “‘Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
The End of the Beginning
"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." So declared Winston Churchill after an early allied victory in World War II. It was a reminder to his nation that the war would require many more years and a...
Contradictory Notions of Fairness
There was a time when Thanksgiving meant an occasion for counting our blessings. But, now that we have so many blessings that previous generations could hardly have dreamed about, we take them all for granted and are much more likely to count our grievances and the...
Saudi Arabia’s “Devotion” to the United States
To hear Prince Bandar tell it, Saudi Arabia is devoted to the United States. "Our role," the Saudi ambassador said in a CNN interview some weeks ago, "is to stand solid and shoulder-to-shoulder with our friends, the people of the United States.... In 1990, when we...
Arab World Poverty: Whose Fault?
"I don't have the knowledge to blame a government," said Bakhtiar Khan, an Afghan man in his mid-twenties. "I don't know about politics, but for our problems I blame the world community. All humans should be equal, but we are not. You ask me who is to blame. You find...
The ‘Next Big Thing’ in Technology?
You may know Jim Jubak from his frequent appearances on CNBC. Jubak, the senior markets editor at MSN Money, holds a core investing principle: the conventional wisdom is always wrong. Suffice it to say that this guy has an independent streak, which is a great virtue...
Diversity vs. “Diversity”
Sometimes it seems as if "diversity" is going to replace "the" as the most often used word in the English language. Yet the place where this word has become a holy grail -- academia -- shows less tolerance for genuine diversity of viewpoints than any other American...
Zero Tolerance for Red Cross Moochers…and Government Looters
Hold the Red Cross accountable! The headlines seemed unmerciful. Red Cross CEO Bernadine Healy, on the job only two years, suddenly announced her retirement. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Healy resigned ... saying she had been forced out by her board over...
Bill Clinton’s anti-American speech at Georgetown University
Nothing is an outrage when the reigning fad is being non-judgmental. So perhaps it is not surprising that there has been no nationwide chorus of condemnation of Bill Clinton's anti-American speech at Georgetown University. According to the former president, America is...
On Shovels, Caterpillars, and the Capital Gains Tax
I live up a narrow, one-lane private road that winds up a steep, wooded canyon in Northern California. A couple years ago, during the El Nino winter that dropped record rains here, a side of the canyon collapsed and a massive mudslide closed the road. Heading uphill...
U.S. Kids Speak on the War
Why did 19 Islamic extremist terrorists attack America on Sept. 11, 2001? Why do so many hate America? Here's how some American children answered those questions. Josh, age 12: "I just think (Osama bin Laden) needs to find something a little bit like the Nazis did,...
Paul Krugman: Another Ivy League Pseudo-Economist
Like one of those football mascots -- a poor, sweaty guy dressed up in a giant fuzzy costume of a shark or an eagle (or whatever his team's symbol is) -- Paul Krugman is dancing and clowning around in the field and among the fans trying to whip up martial enthusiasm,...
Unfinished Civil Rights Agenda
When the NAACP, Urban League and black politicians talk about civil rights, they talk mostly about how many blacks are in college, the racial composition of schools and neighborhoods or the number of blacks employed in what positions. The Institute for Justice has...
Disband the Coalition
They tell us not to bombard the Taliban too severely--because its "moderate" factions need to become part of any new Afghan government. They urge us to cease military action during the month of Ramadan--giving the killers further opportunity to plan their next...
Elitist Contempt for American Values
College campuses are home to elitists who are out of touch with and have contempt for American values. Let's look at some of their statements after the recent terrorist attacks. Hours after the terrorist attacks, University of New Mexico History Professor Richard...
The Economics of War
National emergencies are notorious for giving free reign to bad economics. In the panic of a crisis, people grasp desperately for solutions. And thanks to generations of bad economics education, they are offered a wide range of economic errors to grasp at. The most...
No More Jury Trials for Terrorists
When American pacifists talk about seeking "justice" for terrorists, here is what they mean: More than $7 million in U.S. taxpayer funds went to lawyers who defended Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, and Wadih El-Hage....
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