Many blame capitalism for the current financial crisis. Even Alan Greenspan, who at one time was an advocate of the free market, blames capitalism. He recently testified in front of a congressional committee that “A critical pillar to . . . free markets did...
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 GOP Betrayal of Capitalism, Alan Greenspan’s Lies and The Scapegoat Phase of the Bear Market
These GOP traitors to capitalism have aped the Social Democrat playbook.
Let Them Fail
Everywhere today politicians are blaring that they must save America’s financial institutions, alleging catastrophic risk to the economy were any to fail. Paulson and the entire Bush administration, in a discernible panic, are now pouring $700 billion into the...
The Politics of Health Insurance
There are some noteworthy differences between the health care policies advocated by Senators McCain and Obama. Both candidates, however, share fundamental flaws that make either set of proposals largely undesirable and impossible to implement. Both Obama and McCain...
A Perfect Storm
Some elections are routine, some are important and some are historic. If Senator John McCain wins this election, it will probably go down in history as routine. But if Senator Barack Obama wins, it is more likely to be historic– and catastrophic. Once the...
Obama, Colin Powell and Popularity
Among all the people who are now scrambling to get on the Obama bandwagon, none is likely to impress more people than Colin Powell– especially people who know no more about the specifics of Colin Powell’s actions than the specifics of Barack Obama’s....
Wackonomics
For the U.S. Congress, news media, pundits and much of the American public, a lot of economic phenomena can be explained by what people want, human greed and what seems plausible. I’m going to name this branch of economic “science” wackonomics and...
Taxing Times
Chief Justice John Marshall said it all in one sentence: “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” It is not the money that is taxed away that is destroyed. What is destroyed is the wealth that does not get produced in the first place, because high taxes...
Obama and the Law
One of the biggest and most long-lasting “change” to expect if Barack Obama becomes President of the United States is in the kinds of federal judges he appoints. These include Supreme Court justices, as well as other federal justices all across the...
A Nation of Sacrificers: McCain’s Love of What is Not America
One thing that is often implied, if not made explicit, about this election is that John McCain–like George Bush–really loves his country. Of course he makes mistakes in particular areas, the apologists claim, but these are the forgivable errors of a true...
Who Broke Health Care?
Many politicians now tell us that health care in America is “broken.” The best initial response to that is to ask yourself whether you think that your own health care is broken. And if it is, do you want to turn your decisions about your own health over to...
Vote “No” on Amendment 48
Colorado voters face a stark moral choice in this election: vote yea or nay on Amendment 48. That ballot measure would grant fertilized eggs the legal standing of persons–including “inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of...
Affordable Health Care
One of the campaign themes this election cycle is “affordable” health care. Shouldn’t we ask ourselves whether we want the politicians who brought us the “affordable” housing, that created the current financial debacle, to now deliver us...
At Moment of Truth, Where Was Dagny Taggart?
The front page of today’s Wall Street Journal carries a story titled “At Moment of Truth, U.S. Forced Big Bankers to Blink.” In the quarter-century I’ve been reading the Journal, I’ve never read a news story that was more disturbing. The...
True Believers in Obama
Telling a friend that the love of his life is a phony and dangerous is not likely to get him to change his mind. But it may cost you a friend. It is much the same story with true believers in Barack Obama. They have made up their minds and not only don’t want to...
The Alleged Absence of Depressions Under Totalitarian Management
Many socialist authors emphasize that the recurrence of economic crises and business depressions is a phenomenon inherent in the capitalist mode of production. On the other hand, they say, a socialist system is safe against this evil. As has already become obvious and...
In Defense of the “Barbarous Relic”: Why The Enemies of Capitalism Smear The Gold Standard
Given the state of affairs created by the U.S. Central Banking system this classic on Free Banking and the Gold Standard by Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) is all the more relevant today . Excerpted from his book “Human Action: A Treatise on Economics”...
Faith-Based Politics Costs Colorado Republicans
Colorado is known for its Western values of independence and economic liberty. So why do Republicans, the supposed champions of those values, keep getting trounced? Republicans can blame wealthy Democratic donors, but in large part Republicans have beaten themselves...
Political Monopoly Power
The Federalist Papers, written by James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, is the document most frequently referred to when trying to get a feel for the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. One such intention is found in Federalist 56 where...
Negative Advertising
One of the oldest phenomena of American elections– criticism of one’s opponent– has in recent times been stigmatized by much of the media as “negative advertising.” Is this because the criticism has gotten more vicious or more personal?...
Was the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis Caused by Lack of Regulations?
Did lack of regulation create the subprime mortgage crisis? I am asked this all the time. The short answer: Of course not. Nowhere close. Not a chance. Here is the long answer. What regulations have we had? The mortgage originator (your local bank or mortgage broker)...
Bill Maher’s Movie Religulous
“Religulous” is a funny, sometimes serious, skeptic’s tale of religion. And I mean the true meaning of “skeptic.” Bill Maher does a good job of slicing and dicing religion. He travels to the Vatican, Utah, and Israel. Maher identifies the...
Lessons From the Bailout
In my more cynical moments, I think that we Americans deserve what we get from our politicians, many of whom can be generally described as nothing less than loathsome. You say, “Williams, that’s a pretty heavy putdown.” My question to you is how else...
The Real Obama on Education
What about those “real issues” that Barack Obama’s supporters in the media say we should get back to, whenever some new unsavory fact about his past comes out? Surely education is a real issue, with American school children consistently scoring below...
The Real Obama
Critics of Senator Barack Obama make a strategic mistake when they talk about his “past associations.” That just gives his many defenders in the media an opportunity to counter-attack against “guilt by association.” We all have associations,...
In Defense of Speculators and Short-Sellers
Everywhere today government bureaucrats and media pundits blame unwanted price movements on speculators and short-sellers. If prices are “too high”–it’s the fault of greedy speculators; if prices are “too low”–it’s the...
The Financial Panic and the Only Proper Answer to It
One fact is absolutely clear: most of the blame for the current financial panic is utterly misdirected. Rather than hold accountable the irrational government policies that encouraged irresponsible lending and mountains of homeowner debt (and those who supported these...
Monetary Policy and the Return to Sound Money
Excerpted from Chapter 23, Part IV of Mises classic The Theory of Money and Credit (1912). The people of all countries agree that the present state of monetary affairs is unsatisfactory and that a change is highly desirable. However, ideas about the kind of reform...
Government Bailout Crack
Every few days we hear that another leading financial institution has written down billions more on subprime investments gone bad. Nearly every major financial institution, it turns out, had a hand in loans to low-credit borrowers–borrowers whose ability to pay...
Destroying Liberty
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.” The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not now, the...
Economic Freedom in America: What is Economic Freedom?
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred,...
Penny-Wise Politics: Class Envy and CEO Pay
Congress is never more ridiculous than when it tries to look like it is serious. In the midst of a major national financial crisis, what was one of the first things Congress zeroed in on? The pay of Chief Executive Officers of financial institutions. If all those CEOs...
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