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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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”...
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...
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...
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?...
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)...
“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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
Dear Members of Congress: On September 16 [2008] I sent a letter to my congressman, and to other senior US government officials, that consisted of three sentences: “I oppose all bailouts of financial institutions by the US government. Government...
Here is a letter by John Allison, President & CEO of BB&T, that was sent to every member of Congress. Dear Senator/Congressman/Representative: BB&T is a $136 billion multi-state banking company. We have 1,500 branches throughout the mid-Atlantic...
Nothing could more painfully demonstrate what is wrong with Congress than the current financial crisis. Among the Congressional “leaders” invited to the White House to devise a bailout “solution” are the very people who have for years created...
This is the last in a seven part series detailing our objections to plans by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to claim unlimited power over the life of every American. Those plans were laid out in an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR), dated...
In “Fact and Fiction: Debunking Myths in the US Healthcare System”[1], Sarpel et al presume “an obligation to provide healthcare to those who need it.” This faulty moral premise underlies all forms of socialized medicine (including the...
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