Most climatologists agree that the earth’s temperature has increased about a degree over the last century. The debate is how much of it is due to mankind’s activity. Britain’s Channel 4 television has just produced “The Great Global Warming...
POLITICS
What to Do About High Gasoline Prices
In response to recent rises in gas prices, we are once again hearing calls for the government to “do something” to force prices lower. But no matter what the price of gasoline is, such calls are wrong. All market fluctuations in the price of gasoline, up...
Should the Veterans Administration Take Over All Health Care?
For years the advocates of a total takeover of health care by the government have pointed to the Veterans Administration as the model of efficient and caring health care by our government. It provides an ideal model, they said, for all health care. They must have...
Hazardous Safety Regulation
Whenever someone is hurt in an accident, people say, “There ought to be a law!” Politicians rush to oblige them and then take credit for all the lives they saved. But shouldn’t they also accept blame for the lives lost because of those laws? Lives...
Regrets for Slavery
Both chambers of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s General Assembly passed a resolution saying government-sanctioned slavery “ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation’s history;...
The Fear Industrial Complex
We can scare ourselves stupid. Consider vaccines. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the mercury in them has “poisoned an entire generation! It’s causing IQ loss, mental retardation, speech delay, language delay, ADD, hyperactivity!” The news media love this...
Take a Stand for the Rights of Physicians
While Governor Schwarzenegger and California legislators are busy putting forward proposals to socialize health care, one element is profoundly missing: none of these politicians know or care what physicians think of the proposals. It should have occurred to them that...
Democracy or Liberty
Does democracy really deserve the praise it receives? According to Webster’s Dictionary, democracy is defined as “government by the people; especially: rule of the majority.” What’s so great about majority rule? Let’s look at majority...
Modern Politics as Modern Art
The mere allegation that the one side is “playing politics” is like a catch-all smear to stop any opposition in its tracks.
Profits Lower the Cost of Health Care in the Long Run
Advocates of medical socialism want to reduce the profits of pharmaceutical firms and put health insurance companies out of business completely. But who profits from profits–and exactly who profits when they are destroyed? Critics point to supposedly lower...
Stocks Look Cheap Historically, But They May Get Cheaper
With stocks at new highs, are prices too high for the value-minded investor to pay? I say no — although if you are a value-minded trader, the answer may be yes. The way I look at stock valuations is by comparing consensus forward earnings to current long-term...
No Drug Price Controls
The Democrats who now control Congress want to change President Bush’s Medicare drug benefit to require government officials to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. Under the current program, competing insurance companies cut the deals and...
Nonsense Ideas About Economics
There are some ideas and feelings that sound plausible but given just a wee bit of thought can be shown to border on lunacy. Let’s examine a few. Some U.S. companies have been accused of exploiting Third World workers with poor working conditions and low wages....
Social Security is a Monstrous Injustice
Throughout the nation, a fierce debate rages over Social Security. One side, led by President Bush, says the system is in crisis and must be saved via “partial privatization.” The other side says the system is basically sound and can be saved with a little...
Religion vs. Liberty
America’s war on terrorism is being undercut–by the administration’s efforts to inject religion into politics.
Universal Health Insurance: Schwarzenegger Terminates Good Government
Schwarzenegger’s Folly Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants all Californians to have medical insurance. So he’s going to force them to have it. Schwarzenegger abandoned his opposition to mandated employer-based health insurance and embraced the idea as his...
Multiculturalism’s Real Agenda
Back to school nowadays means back to classrooms, lessons and textbooks permeated by multiculturalism and its championing of “diversity.” Many parents and teachers regard multiculturalism as an indispensable educational supplement, a salutary influence...
Washington’s Make-Believe Policy on Iran
The Bush administration claims to have a way to deter the militant theocracy of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons–and thwart its ambition to bring “death to America.” Washington’s plan aims to pressure Teheran, financially and...
One Step Forward, Ten Steps Back: How California Will Make Health Care Much More Expensive
California is a huge state with a huge population, a huge economy and a huge, rapidly growing government. Any attempt by that government to address health care issues draws the aggressive lobbying attention of a huge number of corporate, union, religious and political...
Panic in Boston
A few weeks ago, men working for an advertising agency installed light screens in cities to promote a Cartoon Network program. No one seemed alarmed by the signs featuring cartoon characters flipping the bird — until suddenly, weeks after the promotion began,...
World Poverty
If you’re looking for a map of world poverty, check out the “2007 Index of Economic Freedom” jointly published by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. You might think that’s a strangely titled source for a poverty map. The 13th...
Grammar Made Fashionable: Phyllis Davenport’s “Rex Barks”
I began my career as a private teacher for a few families committed to providing their children with a real education. These parents had abandoned a fruitless search for a school in which their children would read the classics of literature, learn the story of...
Property Rights After the Kelo Decision
“Imprimis” is Hillsdale College’s monthly publication that has over 1.25 million readers. It’s Hillsdale’s way of sharing the ideas of the many distinguished speakers invited to their campus. And, I might add, Hillsdale College is one of...
Faith's War against Worldliness
“The Muslim loves death and martyrdom, just as you love life. There is a great difference between he who loves the Hereafter and he who loves this world. The Muslim loves death and seeks Martyrdom.” So declared an Islamic clergyman in Jerusalem just...
Doctors Shrugging
Doctors should demand to work on their own terms and recognize they have a right to trade their services voluntarily in exchange for what the market will bear.
Portland’s Metro Fraud
The Federal Highway Administration has apparently reached its limit with Portland’s fantasy transportation planning. In comments filed recently on Metro’s so-called “Regional Transportation Plan”, the federal government noted that,...
Big, Big Government
Two weeks ago, U.S. drug agents launched raids on 11 medical-marijuana centers in Los Angeles County. The U.S. attorney’s office says they violated the laws against cultivation and distribution of marijuana. Whatever happened to America’s federal system,...
Potter’s Morals vs. Bible’s Magic
Christians have it backward. If you’re worried about your child obsessing over magic, it’s not Harry Potter you should guard against; it’s the Bible. Author J.K. Rowling doesn’t bill her writing as anything other than fiction. Youngsters are...
Subsidized “Free Trade” Is Not Free Trade
For a small-scale corn farmer driven out of business in Mexico by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the fancy economic theories about the benefits of “free trade” might not seem too believable. As the theory of comparative advantage goes,...
Making More Health Insurance Premiums Tax-Deductible
Making individual premiums tax deductible may open the door for further reforms that help get employers out of providing health insurance altogether.
Life In Junior High, Part 1
When I tell people that I teach literature to junior high students, the response is nearly universal: an expression of profound sympathy. Teaching junior high is regarded as a martyr’s job, to be taken on only by those with such a selfless commitment to children...
Losing Sleep over the Trade Deficit?
I’m told to worry about the trade deficit. Commentators and populist politicians are wringing their hands. The trade deficit is a “malignant tumor in the intestines of the U.S. economy,” says Pat Buchanan. Lou Dobbs is very upset that...
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