Florida Senator Bill Nelson is seizing on the BP oil spill as an excuse to pass federal “price gouging” legislation.  It’s certainly nothing new to see anti-market politicians stirring up populist rage with these so-called “price gouging” laws.  Many states already have them on the books, and politicians are quick to warn greedy capitalists against […]

I’m used to being attacked, but usually by statists. In a man-bites-dog development, here’s a 12-1/2-minute video dedicated to the proposition that I was hopelessly squishy in my Rahn Curve video. What makes this situation rather ironic is that I agree with the guy tearing me a new you-know-what. But this is also my defense. […]

I like poking fun at French politicians for being hopeless statists, and I always assumed that French voters shared their collectivist sympathies. But according to new polling data reported by the Financial Times, there may be a Tea Party revolt brewing in France. Among major European nations, the French are most in favor of smaller government. […]

Eline van den Broek probably is not happy today since she was in South Africa watching her team lose a high-scoring battle with Spain, but she should be very proud of the new video she narrated that urges the repeal of Obamacare – and also points out some of the other reforms that are needed to […]

According to a new poll from a Democratic firm, an astounding 55 percent of people think “socialist” is a term that describes Obama. Here’s a blurb from a National Review post. Deep in the poll, they ask, “Now, I am going to read you a list of words and phrases which people use to describe […]

Nicole Gelinas has been one of the most astute observers of how government has screwed up the financial system and her column in the Washington Examiner is an excellent summary of why the Dodd-Frank bill is a step in the wrong direction. For 25 years, Washington has done everything in its power to subsidize Americans’ […]

Much of the economic debate in Washington revolves around the silly Keynesian notion that politicians can stimulate an economy by borrowing money from the private sector and using the funds to make government bigger. That didn’t work for Hoover and Roosevelt during the 1930s, Japan during the 1990s, Bush in 2008, or Obama last year […]

I’m out in Sin City for the annual FreedomFest conference, where I moderated a debate earlier today on whether consumer spending or investment spending was the key to economic growth. As you can imagine, it was horribly painful for me to keep from injecting my two cents in the discussion, so I figured I would […]

Politicians often talk about the supposed value of federally-funded research and development, which sometimes sounds like a good idea to people unfamiliar with the incompetence, inefficiency, red tape, and bureaucracy of even well-intentioned programs. But it turns out the government-financed R&D also is boondoggle for academics looking to get on the federal gravy train. Here’s […]

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, “Someone may steal from it at night.” So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job. Then Congress said, “How does the watchman do his job without instruction?” So they created […]