Is General Motors to become a brain-dead patient in a Federal bailout ward, languishing on tax-funded life support beyond all hope of recovery? Not if Congress steps aside and lets the bankruptcy courts do justice through adjudication.
POLITICS
Economic Miracle
The idea that even the brightest person or group of bright people, much less the U.S. Congress, can wisely manage an economy has to be the height of arrogance and conceit. Why? It is impossible for anyone to possess the knowledge that would be necessary for such an...
Upside Down Economics
From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us. What was lacking in the housing market, they say, was government regulation of the...
The Rush To Wait
The big story last week was the incredible Congressional rush to pass a bill that was more than a thousand pages long in just two days-- after which it sat on the President's desk for three days while the Obamas were away on a holiday. There is the same complete...
Fresh Ideas for President Obama
President Obama, who clearly doesn't know what he's doing, keeps asking for new ideas. Of course, he's only interested in socialist ones. Here are some fresh ideas from the capitalism point-of-view: Deregulate the economy across the board. We're told the economy has...
Government Medical Care Always Becomes Political Medical Care
Americans did not invent democracy. What America rightly did, for the first time in history, was institutionalize the concept of limited government--based not on majority rule, but on individual rights. Sadly, this foundation is not properly recognized and is rapidly...
Stimulus Package? The Hell with Our Constitution
Dr. Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Oakland-based Independent Institute, penned an article in The Christian Science Monitor (2/9/2009) that suggests the most intelligent recommendation that I've read to fix our current economic mess. The title of his article gives...
Random Thoughts for February 2008
Random thoughts on the passing scene: One of the most important skills for political success is the ability to make confident assertions of absurdities or lies. The adage "follow the money" will be hard to apply in the current administration, when there is so much...
De-Programming Students
Letters from parents often complain of a sense of futility in trying to argue with their own children, who have been fed a steady diet of the politically correct vision of the world, from elementary school to the university. Some ask for suggestions of particular...
The National Ponzi Scheme
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was set up to combat fraudulent practices. The SEC's website explains that "Ponzi schemes are a type of illegal pyramid scheme named for Charles Ponzi, who duped thousands of New England residents into investing in a...
Stop the Assault on our Public Markets
In a widely-circulated NY Times column (Jan 13, 2009), Bob Herbert proposes a 0.25% transaction tax on every stock trade. If this idea, which has been garnering support among politicians, passes into law, it will mark another devastating -- perhaps fatal -- blow...
Republicans as Democrats
A brief glimmer of sanity among Congressional Republicans has been followed, almost immediately, by a return to the more traditional Washington insanity. Last week, every single Republican in the House of Representatives voted against the Obama administration's...
Rational Science versus Sacrificial Politics
The Obama administration continues to appoint radical environmentalists who want us to commit industrial suicide on behalf of nature. Meanwhile, top-rank scientists continue to renounce claims of a coming climate disaster. The latest scientist to voice his conclusions...
There Is No Santa: The Stimulus Spending Ruse
Here is what my George Mason University colleague Professor Richard Wagner wrote, which was published by Office of the House Republican Leader: "Any so-called stimulus program is a ruse. The government can increase its spending only by reducing private spending...
A Crisis is a Terrible Thing for a Politician to Waste
Everyone is talking about how much money the government is spending, but very little attention is being paid to where they are spending it or what they are buying with it. The government is putting money into banks, even when the banks don't want it, in hopes that the...
Castro’s Cuba at Fifty: No Freedom, No Fish
I was in Hollywood, Florida, on January 8, the 50th anniversary of Fidel Castro's triumphant arrival in Havana after shooting his way to power and ousting the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. The morning newspaper at our hotel reported that Fidel Castro had...
Lured To Disaster by “Affordable Housing”
Behind the housing boom and bust was one of those alluring but undefined phrases that are so popular in politics-- "affordable housing." It is hard for me to know specifically what politicians are talking about when they use this phrase. But then politics is about...
Political Speeches
If making speeches is one of the tests of a President of the United States, then Barack Obama has passed his first test with flying colors. He has understood the varied constituencies, and the various hopes and fears he had to address. He said the kinds of things that...
Israel vs. Hamas: Pretty Talk and Ugly Realities
No phrase represents more of a triumph of hope over experience than the phrase "Middle East peace process." A close second might be the once-fashionable notion that Israel should "trade land for peace." Since everybody seems to be criticizing Israel for its military...
Rich People Versus Politicians
Sometimes I wish there were a humane way to get rid of the rich. Without the rich for whipping boys, we might be able to concentrate on what's best for the 99 and a half percent of the rest of us. ...
The “Federal Health Board:” Another Scheme to Ration Healthcare
Tom Daschle, President-elect Obama's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, has big plans for healthcare. Mr. Daschle has proposed a new "Federal Health Board," an agency that would have unprecedented powers over the healthcare industry. This...
The Economic “Stimulus”
Two centuries ago, when there were plans to create a huge fund of money to pay off Britain's national debt, the great classical economist David Ricardo objected on grounds that-- no matter what the money was said to be for-- politicians could spend it for whatever...
Teaching Economics
Many professors, mostly on the liberal side of the political spectrum, use their classrooms to proselytize students. I have taught economics for the past 40 years and challenge anyone to find even one student, among the thousands who went through my classes, who can...
The Art of the Impossible
Whoever called politics "the art of the possible" must have had a strange idea of what is possible or a strange idea of politics, where the impossible is one of the biggest vote-getters. People can get...
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