I suspect this is a marketing gimmick, but this story I saw linked on Marginal Revolution will be a good test of incentives. A hotel is offering meal vouchers for people who “produce at least 10 watt hours of electricity” by riding an exercise bicycle. There is a 99 percent chance that I would cycle […]

More on Obama and Socialism. I got some interesting feedback about my pseudo-defense of Obama against the accusation that he is a socialist. It was a faux defense because my goal was simply to point out that Obama is guilty of a different form of statism. For those interested in more information, Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism […]

The politicians are urging big taxes on banks, using rhetoric designed to trick people into thinking that this is a way to make the banks pay for their own bailouts. But a general tax on all banks simply means that well-run banks subsidize the reckless banks – a problem that may get worse over time […]

I get a lot of email asking me about Greece, especially since I don’t give the issue much attention on the blog. I am paying close attention to what’s happening, especially since Greece is a canary in the coal mine. But I generally try to avoid being repetitious, and anything I say now would replicate […]

Any company that steals money from taxpayers is despicable, but General Motors is especially reprehensible for dishonesty. Taking money from the left pockets of taxpayers and putting it in our right pockets is not a repayment, as explained by Shikha Dalmia in a column for Forbes.com. Her most important observation, after churning through the numbers, […]

His article doesn’t completely slam the door on a value-added tax, but Robert Samuleson’s piece in the Washington Post does highlight some of the very serious problems with a VAT – including more government spending, burdens on families, additional complexity, and more corruption: Almost every pro-VAT argument is exaggerated, misleading, incomplete or wrong. The VAT […]

The Chicago Tribune reports that a bunch of government bureaucrats went to the capital of Illinois and protested in favor of higher taxes. But it’s not exactly news that looters want more looting. The amazing thing to note is that the Democrats have complete control of Illinois government yet they are afraid to raise tax […]

He’s only been Governor for a couple of months, and we have seen other elected officials start strong and then get captured by the special interested, but it certainly appears that Governor Christie of New Jersey genuinely intends to rescue his stated from becoming the Greece of America. Here’s an excerpt of what George Will […]

Newt Gingrich writes in the Washington Post to defend his assertion that Obama is a socialist. He cites several examples of the President’s big-government agenda, which are excerpted below. These are all examples of bad policy, to be sure, but other than the student loan takeover, these are all examples of fascism rather than socialism. […]