Let’s start 2014 with a depressing story about the reprehensible way in which big companies get in bed with big government. If asked to list the example of cronyism that I find most nauseating, the Export-Import Bank would be at the top of my list. The Obamacare handouts for Big Insuranceand Big Pharma obviously belong on the list as well. […]

Nope, the answer isn’t smoking. Or fatty food. Or 16 oz. sodas. And it’s not alcohol, driving too fast, or standing between politicians and a TV camera. In the past 100 years or so, the biggest cause of premature death has been government. Back in 2011, while criticizing the Baltimore Symphony for using the Soviet hammer and sickle […]

After nearly five years in office, what’s President Obama’s most significant accomplishment? This is a serious question, so no jokes about the Nobel Prize he received for not being Bush. And no partisan GOP answers about the 2010 election, either. Put yourself in the position of a future historian and think about what you would […]

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 […]

We have another candidate for our “Republican Hall of Shame.” The governor of Ohio, John Kasich, is embracing Obamacare. Moreover, not only does he want bad healthcare policy, but he’s using third-world tactics and making morally reprehensible arguments. The Wall Street Journal savages Kasich in a stinging editorial. Here’s a key excerpt that explains the […]

As an advocate of small government, I’m often distressed that I sometimes have to rely on Republicans in Washington to fight statism. Why am I distressed? Because some of the worst people in Washington are GOPers. They may give lip service to fiscal responsibility when campaigning, but then conveniently forget that rhetoric when it’s time […]

I spoke earlier today at the 2013 Liberty Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. But I don’t think anybody is going to remember my speech about the collapse of the welfare state, even though I presented lots of powerful data from the BIS, OECD, and IMF, and also shared a very funny cartoon showing what happens when […]

As illustrated by this chart, economists are lousy forecasters. To be more specific, economists are no better than fortune tellers when trying to make short-run macroeconomic forecasts. Heck, if we actually knew what was going to happen over the next 12 months, we’d all be billionaires. But we can (on occasion) make sensible predictions about […]

There’s an old joke that the definition of quandary is when your mother-in-law drives off a cliff in your new car. But since I’m not married, I can’t use that joke. Besides, I’m a policy wonk, so the type of quandary that catches my attention is when the Obama Administration delays big parts of Obamacare […]

Yesterday, Part I of this series looked at what motivates Barack Obama. We reviewed a Kevin Williamson column that made a strong case that Obama is an ends-justifies-the-means statist. Today, we’re going to look at the President’s approach to economic policy and we’ll focus on an article by my former debating partner, the great Richard […]