Give Me a Break!
Government the Job Killer
President Obama says government will have to build the nation out of the economic trough. “We’re the country that built the intercontinental railroad,” Obama says. “So how can we now sit back and let China build the best railroads?” I guess Obama doesn’t know that the transcontinental railroad was a Solyndra-like Big Government scandal. The [...]
4Jan2012 | John Stossel | 4 comments | ContinuedTen Years After
After 9/11 the U.S. Congress created the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). America went to war, overtly and covertly, in several countries. Nearly $8 trillion was spent on what is called “security,” Chris Hellman of the National Priorities Project estimates. Was it worth it? Yes, in many ways, says author [...]
30Nov2011 | John Stossel | 4 comments | ContinuedWhat We Don’t Know about History Can Hurt Us
“It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble. It’s the things we know that just ain’t so.” That famous line, attributed to many authors but apparently said by humorist Henry Wheeler Shaw (aka Josh Billings), applies to history as much as anything. What liberates oppressed people? I was taught [...]
26Oct2011 | John Stossel | 3 comments | ContinuedThe College Scam
What do Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Mark Cuban have in common? They’re all college dropouts. Richard Branson, Simon Cowell, and Peter Jennings? They never went to college at all. But today all kids are told: To succeed, you must go to college. Hillary Clinton tells students: “Graduates from four-year colleges earn nearly [...]
21Sep2011 | John Stossel | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Cancer of Regulation
Politicians care about poor people. I know because they always say that. But then why do they make it so hard for the poor to escape poverty? Licensing, for example, prices poor people out of business. Take taxis: in New York City, you have to buy a license, or “medallion.” New York restricts the number [...]
24Aug2011 | John Stossel | 3 comments | ContinuedWatch the Watchmen
I believe in the right to privacy. Yet I can think of someone who deserves very little privacy—a policeman making an arrest. Unfortunately it’s a crime in some states to make a video of a policeman doing just that. People recording police have been threatened, detained, or arrested. Some were jailed overnight. That’s wrong. Police [...]
22Jun2011 | John Stossel | 5 comments | ContinuedGun Owners Have a Right to Privacy
If you own a gun in Illinois, take precautions. The state attorney general, Lisa Madigan, wants to release the names of gun owners in response to an Associated Press request. Publication of that list would tell the criminal class where the guns are, which could be useful to two different sorts of lawbreakers: gun thieves [...]
25May2011 | John Stossel | 8 comments | ContinuedSpontaneous Order
You are our Ruler. An entrepreneur tells you he wants to create something he calls a “skating rink.” Young and old will strap blades to their feet and speed through an oval arena, weaving patterns as moods strike them. You’d probably say, “We need regulation—skating stoplights, speed limits, turn signals—and a rink director to police [...]
21Apr2011 | John Stossel | 4 comments | ContinuedProhibitionists: Leave Us Alone!
Sometimes I drink Scotch and then, to wake myself up, I drink coffee. So what? Many people consume mixtures of caffeine and alcohol in drinks like rum and Coke. But recently some college kids started drinking pre-mixed combos of alcohol and caffeine with names like Four Loko and Moonshot ’69. Moonshot ’69 is a pilsner [...]
23Mar2011 | John Stossel | 5 comments | ContinuedWhy Do the Poor Stay Poor?
Of the six billion people on earth, two billion try to survive on a few dollars a day. They don’t build businesses—or if they do, they don’t expand them. Unlike people in the United States, Europe, and Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc., they don’t lift themselves out of poverty. Why not? [...]
24Feb2011 | John Stossel | 9 comments | ContinuedCongress Can’t Repeal Economics
It’s raining! I don’t like it! Why hasn’t Congress passed the Good Weather Act and the Everybody Happy Act? Sound dumb? Why is it any dumber than a law called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which promises to cover more for less money? When Obamacare was debated, we free-market advocates insisted that no [...]
22Dec2010 | John Stossel | 13 comments | ContinuedEntrepreneurs Under Attack
Every day, federal, state, and local governments stifle small businesses to privilege well-connected incumbent companies. It’s a system of protectionism for influential insiders who don’t want competition. Every locality has its share of business moguls who are cozy with politicians. Together, they use the power of government to keep competition down and prices high. The [...]
24Nov2010 | John Stossel | 10 comments | ContinuedMemo to Alan Greenspan: Keep Quiet
I’m getting tired of Alan Greenspan. First, the former Federal Reserve chairman blamed an allegedly unregulated free market for the housing and financial debacle. Now he favors repealing the Bush-era tax cuts. This has a certain sad irony. Recall that Greenspan once was an associate of Ayn Rand, the philosophical novelist who provided a moral [...]
22Oct2010 | John Stossel | 10 comments | ContinuedAttacks on Freedom
Something’s happened to America, and it isn’t good. It’s become easier to get into trouble. We’ve become a nation of a million rules. Not the kind of bottom-up rules that people generate through voluntary associations. Those are fine. I mean imposed, top-down rules formed in the brains of meddling bureaucrats who think they know better [...]
22Sep2010 | John Stossel | 7 comments | ContinuedConfiscating Your Property
In America, we’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Life, liberty, and property can’t be taken from you unless you’re convicted of a crime. Your life and liberty may still be safe, but have you ever gone to a government surplus auction? Consumer reporters like me tell people, correctly, that they are great places [...]
25Aug2010 | John Stossel | 6 comments | ContinuedPoliticians Smother Cities
I like my hometown, but I must admit that New York has problems: high taxes, noise, traffic. Forbes magazine ranks my city the 16th most miserable in America. Ouch! Of course, that makes me wonder: What’s America’s most miserable city? Cleveland, says Forbes. People call it “the Mistake by the Lake.” Cleveland, once America’s sixth-largest [...]
29Jun2010 | John Stossel | 6 comments | ContinuedThe Right to Work
The people of Louisiana must sleep soundly knowing that their state protects them from . . . unlicensed florists. That’s right. In Louisiana, you can’t sell flower arrangements unless you have permission from the government. How do you get permission? You must pass a test graded by a board of florists who already have licenses. [...]
20May2010 | John Stossel | 16 comments | Continued-
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