Columns

Producing Jobs: Thoughts on Obama’s Plan for Small Businesses

Too many policy boulders are being dropped in the water. One can hardly determine the effects of one before another one is thrown in the pool.

9Feb2010 | Bruce Yandle | 3 comments | Continued

Diversity and the Free Market

If the supporters of diversity really mean it, they should be much more supportive of markets than they generally are.

5Feb2010 | Steven Horwitz | 3 comments | Continued

Are You Ready for Some Government-Approved Football?

I guess now I’ve seen it all. President Obama plans to bring the heavy hand of the Entity Formerly Known as the U.S. Department of Justice into the college football mix.

3Feb2010 | William L. Anderson | 8 comments | Continued

The Other Broken Window

Both the broken-window fallacy and the broken-window hypothesis offer solid arguments against some forms of harmful intervention.

2Feb2010 | Sandy Ikeda | 1 comment | Continued

So Your Freedom-loving Kid is Going to College, Pt. 2

Conservative and libertarian students can have a very good experience in most colleges in the United States if they take their work seriously and respect those with whom they disagree.

28Jan2010 | Steven Horwitz | 4 comments | Continued

Can We Have “Universal” Medical Care Without Coercion?

The recent loss of what supposedly was a “secure” U.S. Senate seat by Democrats in Massachusetts has triggered a firestorm of speculation about the future of the Democrats’ “health care” bill. For the current legislative season, so-called ObamaCare looks to be dead or at least dormant.

27Jan2010 | William L. Anderson | 12 comments | Continued

Mr. Obama and the Bankers: “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly”

Maybe the banks do get it. Maybe, just maybe, we, the electorate, and our political representatives are the ones who don’t get it.

26Jan2010 | Bruce Yandle | 5 comments | Continued

So Your Freedom-loving Kid Is Going to College, Pt. 1

So what to do if you have a college-bound junior or senior in your house as the season of college visits marches on? Are there ways to try to make sure he or she has the best experience possible?

21Jan2010 | Steven Horwitz | 7 comments | Continued

Why Did the “Stimulus” Fail to Help the Economy?

Attempts to “stimulate” the economy through massive government spending may put money into the pockets of politically connected people, but it does nothing to restore the economic factors to their proper balances.

20Jan2010 | William L. Anderson | 5 comments | Continued

Haiti and the Broken-Window Fallacy

In the days following the tragedy we are now witnessing in Haiti, I was wondering how long it would take before someone in the media would commit the broken-window fallacy.

19Jan2010 | Sandy Ikeda | 22 comments | Continued

Wealth, Poverty, and Natural Disasters

Policies that destroy wealth creation today mean a poorer world tomorrow, and poverty — not wealth — exacerbates disaster.

18Jan2010 | James Peron | 21 comments | Continued

Remembering Rothbard

This month marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Murray Rothbard, arguably the most important libertarian theorist of the twentieth century. Although I only met him once in person, his work was influential in developing my “calling” in a number of ways.

14Jan2010 | Steven Horwitz | 18 comments | Continued

Government in the Bedroom – and Everywhere Else

Left-liberals, when discussing abortion on demand, often declare: “We don’t want government in the bedroom.” While I am not arguing about abortion rights, I will point out how the left really wants government in our homes.

13Jan2010 | William L. Anderson | 7 comments | Continued

Why Whole-Body Imaging Won’t Work

Every time the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) fails to protect aviation, as it did when it allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board a plane Christmas Day, it punishes passengers with further restrictions and humiliations. Now the agency wants to virtually strip-search us with whole-body imagers. These gizmos peer through clothing to the skin beneath so [...]

12Jan2010 | Becky Akers | 9 comments | Continued

Is the Name “Capitalism” Worth Keeping? Part 2

The deeper problem with the terms “capitalism” and “socialism” is that they don’t indicate the institutional arrangements under the systems would operate

7Jan2010 | Steven Horwitz | 17 comments | Continued

About Those Tax Breaks

Few things bug free-market economists as much as the attempts by local and state authorities to give tax breaks to certain firms in the name of “creating jobs.”

6Jan2010 | William L. Anderson | 3 comments | Continued

The Balance-of-Payments Deficit: Not to Worry

Quick. What’s the trade deficit between California and the rest of the world? Don’t try Googling it because you won’t find an answer. No government agency—or private entity—computes the dollar value of goods that people in the rest of the world sell to or buy from Californians. Why not? Because it doesn’t matter.
Yet governments do [...]

5Jan2010 | David R. Henderson | 1 comment | Continued