I’m not really sure what to say about the politicians in Malawi. Is this really a serious problem in the country? Will there be a new government agency to enforce the rule? How do they identify perpetrators if there is…um…no accompanying sound? On the other hand, this…
Daily Analysis
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Government-Subsidized Happiness in Brazil
One of the many great things about America’s Founding Fathers is that the Declaration of Independence refers to “unalienable rights” including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But there’s not even a suggestion that it is the job of government to provide…
Tax Lawyers, Tax Complexity, and the Broader Problem of a Self-Serving Legal Profession
The internal revenue code is nightmarishly complex, as illustrated by this video. Americans spend more than 7 billion hours each year in a hopeless effort to figure out how to deal with more than 7 million words of tax law and regulation. Why does this mess exist? The…
School Choice Is a Necessary but not Sufficient Condition to Improve Educational Performance by Minority Students
School choice should be the civil rights issue of the 21st century. Rich people already have school choice, both because they have the ability to live in good school districts and they have the resources to send their kids to private schools. The children of poor…
Comparing Reaganomics and Obamanomics with Minneapolis Fed Data
Ronald Reagan would have been 100 years old on February 6, so let’s celebrate his life by comparing the success of his pro-market policies with the failure of Barack Obama’s policies (which are basically a continuation of George W. Bush’s policies, so this is not a…
The Nanny State Runs Amok, Asks Americans How Much Time They Spend “Sitting on Toilet”
Dana Milbank is a snarky leftist who writes for the Washington Post, but I have to give him credit for an amusing column today about the new big-brother diet guidelines from our incompetent federal government. Here are a few excerpts. In the late 1970s, before the…
Another Legal Defeat for Obamacare!
I refuse to allow myself to get too excited about the chances of Obamacare ultimately being declared unconstitutional, but I’m definitely semi-psyched that this horrid law has been declared void by another federal judge. Here’s what the Washington Examiner has to say….
Greetings from Italy
I’m in Milan, at the office of the Institute Bruno Leoni, which overlooks the famous Castle Sforza and is almost within shouting distance of the remarkable cathedral. This evening, I’ll be talking about how Italy should balance its budget by limiting the size of…
Iran’s Utterly Venal Government
While many of my posts mock American politicians for their foolish, short-sighted, and corrupt choices, I’m still very happy to be a citizen of the United States. Or, to be more accurate, I’m glad that I live in a nation that is part of Western civilization. Consider…
With Apologies to Dickens, One was the Best of Senators, One was the Worst of Senators.
The title of this post doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” But what can you expect when you compare politicians to the opening line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. That’s what came to my mind, though,…