If you ask an economist about the difference between capitalism and socialism, you’ll probably get a boring answer about the size of government, the impact on incentives, and the power of the state. Or maybe you’ll get a nit-picking answer, sort of like when I explained that Obama technically isn’t a socialist. That’s why it’s sometimes […]

I hate to dredge up bad memories so early in a new year, but we need to remind ourselves of the awful TARP bailout of 2008. Our financial system had gone out of whack because of bad monetary policy from the Federal Reserve and unsustainable housing subsidies from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Some financial institutions gambled on […]

If you like to go along to get along, I suggest you don’t become a libertarian. At least not if you follow politics or work in Washington. Otherwise, you’re doomed to a life of endlessly pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. Here are three examples. 1. When almost every Republican and Democrat argued […]

Jay Leno had the all-time best Christmas joke and the school bureaucrats in Haymarket, VA, win the prize for the all-time worst example of anti-Christmas lunacy. But I must win the prize for being the biggest Christmas policy dork. I make this confession freely because there’s no other explanation for being very happy about this […]

Normal people aren’t thinking about public policy at this time of year, but I’m a libertarian who has decided to fight against big government in Washington, so I’m definitely not normal and I could be a masochist. And since you’re reading this instead of daydreaming about Santa, you’re also not part of the herd. Which […]

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 that the link between effort and reward is […]

I greatly admire the way some political cartoonists are able to effectively capture the essence of an issue. And when it comes to government, I’ve always enjoyed the cartoons that portray the state as a blundering, often-malicious, overweight nitwit. But I don’t recall ever seeing a cartoon that manages to illustrate the real nature of […]

I’ve periodically used “Schadenfreude” to describe my feelings about certain issues. Maybe this makes me a bad person, but I’ve openly admitted to a perverse sense of happiness at the misfortune of others when, for instance, France’s class-warfare tax policy backfired because successful taxpayers emigrated. And I’ve expressed similar amusement when writing about Europe’s fiscal […]

It’s been a touch month for President Obama. His beloved healthcare scheme is a slow-motion train wreck and he wasn’t able to trick Republicans into a tax hike as part of budget fights. So let’s pile on with some humor. We’ll start with some NSA-related material. We’ve already shared some amusing cartoons, so now it’s […]

Most of my political humor is designed to mock statists. That’s true whether I’m sharing cartoons, videos, jokes, or one-liners. But I also enjoy clever left-wing humor, even when libertarians are the target. Here are examples that tickled my funny bone. A video portraying Somalia as a libertarian paradise. Cartoons on libertarian ice fishing and libertarian lifeguards. […]