While Canadians are defensive about their health care system, and often times hold it up as a superior model, tens of thousands nevertheless voted with their feet in 2013 for America’s quasi-market system. Each year the Fraser Institute surveys physicians across…
Daily Analysis
New Data Shows Big Loss of Economic Freedom in the United States
My favorite Heritage Foundation publication (other than…ahem…my studies on government spending and the flat tax) is the annual Index of Economic Freedom. Like the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness…
The Most Pro-Capitalism Place to Live in North America Is…
Back in February, I said Australia probably was the country most likely to survive and prosper as much of the world suffered fiscal collapse and social chaos. In hindsight, I probably should have mentioned Canada as an option, in part because of pro-growth reforms in…
The Pope Is Wrong about Capitalism: Free Markets Are Best for the Less Fortunate
Forget the debate over whether Obama is a socialist. Now we’re discussing whether Jesus is for big government. Or, to be more accurate, the Pope has started a debate about whether free markets are bad, particularly for the poor. Samuel Gregg of the Acton Institute…
A Thanksgiving Tale of How Property Rights Saved America
The genius of capitalism is that there is a link between effort and reward. In a genuine market economy (as opposed to cronyism), people can only make themselves rich by working harder and smarter to satisfy the needs and wants of others. The blunder of statism is…
Economic Growth Is the Best Way to Help the Poor, not Redistribution in Pursuit of Coerced Income Equality
Switzerland’s left-wing party has instigated a referendum for November 24 that asks voters to limit pay ranges so that a company wouldn’t be able to pay top employees more than 12 times what they’re paying their lowest-level employees. I talked with Neil Cavuto about…
Will Regulators Kill Bitcoin?
Bitcoin, a digital cryptocurrency, is a potentially disruptive technology offering both social and economic gains. While the technology that has revolutionized peer-to-peer payments is growing in popularity, it is nevertheless vulnerable to being stamped out by…
The Very High Cost of Government Regulation and Red Tape
In prior posts, I’ve shared some remarkable numbers on the cost of regulation. Americans spend 8.8 billion hours every year filling out government forms. The economy-wide cost of regulation is now $1.75 trillion. For every bureaucrat at a regulatory agency, 100 jobs…
A Rare – and Encouraging – Glimpse at How a Free Market Could Work in the Health Sector
I’ve complained ad nauseam about how government has screwed up the health sector, both because of spending programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and because of tax and regulatory distortions that have mutated the supposedly private insurance market into some bizarre…
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Economic Policy
I’ve narrated a video that cites Economic Freedom of the World data to explain the five major factors that determine economic performance. But that video is only six minutes long, so I only skim the surface. For those of you who feel that you’re missing out, you can…




