While the case for minimal government is very strong, that doesn’t mean that there are easy answers for every question. For instance, we know that markets will – over time – penalize people who discriminate. A merchant or employer who deliberately shuns women, blacks,…
Daily Analysis
The Futile Stupidity of Laws Against “Short Selling”
The governments of Spain, Italy, Belgium and (of course) France recently imposed 15-day bans on “short selling,” which means they are prohibiting people from making investments that would be profitable if certain stocks fall in value. According to the politicians, the…
Reid and Pelosi Appoint Fiscal Foxes to Serve on Super-Committee Henhouse
Wow. Not even a pretense of caring about fiscal responsibility. Keep the status quo, even if it means America is doomed to suffer a Greek-style budget meltdown. Those were my thoughts when I heard that Harry Reid appointed Senators Kerry, Murray, and Baucus to the…
What Will You do to Celebrate “Cost of Government Day”?
Tomorrow, August 12, will be a wonderful day. Based on calculations from Americans for Tax Reform, we will have finally worked long enough to finance the total cost of government for 2011. This means the money we earn for the rest of the year will be for the benefit…
U.S. Needs to Ditch the OECD
This past week Standard and Poor’s lowered their credit rating for the U.S. for the first time ever amidst debt ceiling debates over the growing federal deficit. Our leaders have nearly all acknowledged that to get the credit rating back to AAA there will need…
Easy Money from the Federal Reserve Is Not the Solution for America’s Economic Problems
Allen Meltzer, an economist at Carnegie Mellon University, writes today in the Wall Street Journal about the Fed’s worrisome announcement that it will continue the easy-money policy of artificially low interest rates. Professor Meltzer’s key point (at least to me) is…
English Riots, Moral Relativism, Gun Control, and the Welfare State
I wrote earlier this year about the connection between a morally corrupt welfare state and the riots in the United Kingdom. But what’s happening now is not just some left-wing punks engaging in political street theater. Instead, the U.K. is dealing with a bigger…
Debt, Entitlements, Downgrades, Unfunded Liabilities, and the Europeanization of America
I cover a wide range of issues in this interview for Bloomberg Asia. My main theme, not surprisingly, is that government is too big. And I specifically warn about the looming explosion of entitlement spending as the baby boom generation retires.
Obama’s Failed Response to the Downgrade and the Outlook for Fixing America’s Spending Crisis
President Obama just spoke about the downgrade and his remarks were very disappointing. He uttered some empty platitudes, offered no plan, (amazingly) called for more government spending, and continued his advocacy of class-warfare taxation. So what does this mean?…
To Be Fair, Obama’s Responsibility for the Downgrade Is only 15 Percent
It was a strange experience to read the comments and emails generated by yesterday’s post on the “Obama downgrade.” Democrats and liberals were upset that I blamed Obama for the downgrade, as you might expect. Republicans and conservatives, however, were agitated that…