Being pro-market is not the same as being pro-business. A free market means that nobody is using the coercive power of government to obtain unearned goodies, and that is true for big business as well as big labor, or any particular segment of the population. Indeed, handouts to big business are the worst form of […]
read more...Back in 2009, I got very excited when President Obama stated, “No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top.” Did that mean he wanted to reduce America’s punitive and anti-competitive corporate tax burden? Or maybe even fix the entire tax code and install a simple and […]
read more...What is the best way improve economic performance and boost living standards? If you listen to politicians, they would like us to think that adopting Policy A or repealing Policy B is a magic elixir. And if that means adopting a flat tax or repealing Obamacare, I’ll certainly be happy. But this video, based on […]
read more...During his State of the Union speech, President Obama expressed his desire for an “economy built to last,” an oxymoron emblematic of the President’s embrace of Keynesianism and other failed economic philosophies. Simply put, strong economies are not built; they emerge. To be built implies that there be a builder. Naturally, Obama envisions himself in […]
read more...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 bad news, we have worse news, and we […]
read more...Since starting this blog, I’ve cited several columns by Walter Williams (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), in large part because he’s so good at explaining economic concepts, but also because he’s very effective when demonstrating how big government undermines both freedom and […]
read more...The latest “Economics 101” video released today by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P), narrated by Michelle Fields, explains that most politicians have learned the wrong lessons from the Great Depression. Entitled, “The New Deal Was A Failure: Hoover and FDR Prolonged the Great Depression with Big Government,” the video illuminates, through a timely economic history lesson, the dangers of President Obama’s insistence on following in the footsteps of FDR.
read more...This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explains how the statist policies of Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt lengthened and deepened the Great Depression. The video also briefly explains how reductions in the burden of government spending helped the economy recover from a deep recession after World War I and to grow after World War II.
read more...I’m glad that China has taken some steps away from communism. According to Economic Freedom of the World, China was one of 10-worst nations for economic liberty back in 1980 and they’ve since climbed to 92nd place out of 141 nations. I’ve even offered a small bit of praise for China’s shift to a more […]
read more...I’ve always been proud of my Irish heritage, but now I’m having to reconsider. As is so often the case when something goes awry, the blame belongs to a politician (this Craig Ferguson joke is right on the mark). Michael Higgins, the President-Elect of Ireland, has lived a very comfortable life sucking on the government […]
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