Archive for Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman and TheFreemanOnline.org, and a contributor to The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. He is the author of Separating School and State: How to Liberate America's Families.

Elizabeth Warren’s Non Sequitur

Elizabeth Warren, who’s running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, made quite a splash on the Internet with remarks to supporters in which she said: There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved [...]

30Nov2011 | | 17 comments | Continued

Social Cooperation, Part 2

Last month I wrote about Ludwig von Mises’s emphasis on social cooperation as the basis of his economic philosophy, particularly in his magnum opus, Human Action. I thought I’d follow up with more thoughts on this subject. Mises was no maverick in this regard. Interest in social cooperation pervades the best classical-liberal and libertarian thought. [...]

30Nov2011 | | 0 comments | Continued

Fed Secretly Bails Out Big Banks

From Bloomberg: Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing. The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so [...]

29Nov2011 | | 25 comments | Continued

What Congress Is Fighting Over

Here’s what the growth in federal spending would look like with and without the ten-year $1.2 trillion “cut” to be trigged by the supercommittee’s failure. HT: Nick Gillespie

21Nov2011 | | 38 comments | Continued

Putting Bureaucracy First: Rachel Maddow’s Progressivism

Bureaucratic dominance does not merely lower material living standards or reduce profit opportunities. It crushes lives and dreams.

18Nov2011 | | 32 comments | Continued

Back to Basics

If mind is brain, there is no “psychological” freedom or responsibility — no humanity. And if those don’t exist, there can be no political freedom or self-responsibility. What does not exist cannot be violated.

11Nov2011 | | 58 comments | Continued

They’re Not Insulting Our Mothers

That the wealth of the nonrich has grown is no reason to be complacent about corporatism. It simply shows that something less than complete freedom goes a long way.

4Nov2011 | | 33 comments | Continued

Cato Launches Libertarianism.org

The Cato Institute has unveiled a new website, Libertarianism, which will, in editor Aaron Ross Powell’s words, “facilitate[] deep and fruitful discussion of these ideas [of liberty]. And . . . introduce[] visitors to the value of the presumption of liberty.” The site will feature classic and new articles and video lectures, never shown before, of [...]

3Nov2011 | | 5 comments | Continued

Just Wondering

Would Bernard Madoff’s prospective victims have been better or worse off in a world with no government oversight of investment matters whatsoever? Is necessary to spell out the answer?

31Oct2011 | | 6 comments | Continued

William A. Niskanen, RIP

Bill Niskanen, an important Public Choice economist and long-time chairman of the Cato Institute, died earlier this week. I had the pleasure of having Bill as a colleague during my five years at Cato in the 1990s. He was unfailingly helpful and friendly, a fount of good sense in many ways. He was also supportive [...]

28Oct2011 | | 0 comments | Continued

Social Cooperation, Part 3

Some liberal thinkers have attached such importance to social cooperation that they have likened society to a living organism.

28Oct2011 | | 7 comments | Continued

Social Cooperation

At FEE’s Advanced Austrian Economics Seminar last summer, more than one speaker mentioned that Ludwig von Mises considered a different title for the book we know as Human Action. The other title? Social Cooperation. I’ve heard that story before, but this time it got me thinking: Would the free-market movement have been perceived differently by [...]

26Oct2011 | | 5 comments | Continued

Progressive Intolerance

Television pundits increasingly express an attitude that is at once arrogant and ignorant: The people who oppose Keynesian economics—specifically an increase in government deficit spending to create jobs and jumpstart the economy—are the same kind of people who also believe that the earth is only several thousand years old (rather than 4.5 billion), that evolution [...]

26Oct2011 | | 7 comments | Continued

Let Sleeping Failures Lie: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation

The most fallacious argument for an RFC is that it can provide capital when there is a shortage. Obviously, the government has no capital of its own.

21Oct2011 | | 5 comments | Continued

Seems to Me …

“Tax the Rich!” sounds greedy.

14Oct2011 | | 10 comments | Continued

Destroying Value

It’s sad enough that we waste precious resources and labor because we are fallible. It’s so much sadder when this happens because government policies lead rational people to make stupid decisions.

14Oct2011 | | 18 comments | Continued

It Takes a Government to Inflate a Housing Bubble

If you want to fully appreciate government’s responsibility for the housing bubble and ensuing financial meltdown, see this article by Peter Wallison. Choice quote: Beginning in 1992, the government required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to direct a substantial portion of their mortgage financing to borrowers who were at or below the median income in [...]

12Oct2011 | | 1 comment | Continued
Newer Entries • Older Entries

    • © Copyright 2011 Freeman - Ideas on Liberty. All rights reserved.

    84 queries. 3.133 seconds