Along with many others, I complained a couple of days ago that Mercedes-Benz was morally bankrupt for using the image of a notorious racist, communist, and murderer as part of a marketing gimmick. Well, the company has backed down. We won. It’s only symbolic, but…
Daily Analysis
President Obama the Budget Cutter?!?
After saddling the nation with trillion-dollar boondoggles like the faux stimulus and Obamacare, I’m not sure it’s possible for Obama to reinvent himself as a budget cutter before the election. But I welcome converts, even ones that are insincere, so I’m happy he’s at…
The Price of Big Government: America Again Drops in Global Ranking of Economic Freedom
The 2012 Index of Economic Freedom has just been released. This is my favorite publication from the Heritage Foundation, and second only to the Economic Freedom of the World Index as a measure of global public policy. The news scores for 2012 are not pretty. We have…
A Futile Economics Lesson for France’s Politicians
I realize this is about as productive as talking to a brick wall, but I’m going to explain some basic economics to statist French policymakers (oops, pardon the redundancy). This heroic – albeit surely futile – impulse is triggered by a recent proposal from President…
I Agree with Fidel Castro
Even vicious, reprehensible, and disgusting tyrants sometimes make wise observations. Back in 2010, for instance, Cuba’s Murderer-in-Chief confessed that communism didn’t work. More recently, the thug expressed unhappiness with the current crop of presidential…
Supposedly Bankrupt Greek Government to Reward Pedophiles with Disability Payments
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I write about insanely stupid government policies. But I know I get more motivated to fight big government. How can anyone want to give more money and power to politicians, for instance, after reading these comparisons of dumb…
If You Liked Bush’s Big-Government Policies, You’ll Love Santorum’s Statism
I’m a big believer in fairness. And since I’ve written about the shortcomings of Newt Gingrich, Mitch Daniels, Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Mitt Romney, I need to say something about Rick Santorum. Actually, I don’t need to say anything, because other…
Mitt Romney and Bain Capital Were Right to Utilize So-Called Tax Havens
I’m not a big fan of Mitt Romney. I hammered him the day before Christmas for being open to a value-added tax, and criticized him in previous posts for his less-than-stellar record on healthcare, his weakness on Social Security reform, his anemic list of proposed…
Austan Goolsbee’s Budget Math Is Wrong – More than 100 Percent of Long-Term Fiscal Challenge Is Government Spending
Austan Goolsbee, the former Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, has a column in the Wall Street Journal that argues government spending isn’t too high. That’s obviously a silly assertion, as I explain here, here, and here, but I want to focus…
Illinois Politicians Meet the Challenge in the U.S. vs. U.K. Government Stupidity Contest
When I read the story from England about needing photo ID to buy teaspoons, I thought British bureaucrats built an insurmountable lead in the U.S. vs. U.K. contest for stupidest government action. But I should have had more faith in the hare-brained politicians of…