Departments
Had Enough Yet?
Regarding the looming fiscal disaster, it’s best to keep one’s eyes on the forest and not get lost in the trees. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the numbers, but one thing looks certain: Most everyone understands the current situation is unsustainable in the ruling establishment’s own terms. If nothing changes, in perhaps a little [...]
25May2011 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedWe Need to Build Society for “Shared Prosperity”?
In a recent New York Times column (“Degrees and Dollars,” March 6), economist Paul Krugman surprisingly had an “it just ain’t so” moment of his own, taking issue with the widely accepted but erroneous idea that more education is the key to increasing prosperity. While he was right about that, his conclusion that technological changes [...]
25May2011 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedAmerica’s Greatness Requires War and Taxes?
New York Times columnist David Brooks thinks America is great but in trouble, and he wants to take steps to preserve American preeminence. He’s right, though not in the way he thinks. In his November 11, 2010, column Brooks argued that we need some sort of National Greatness Agenda; the problem is that his conception [...]
21Apr2011 | Aeon J. Skoble | 1 comment | ContinuedWisconsin Labor Brouhaha
Wisconsin’s been through quite a row. The new governor, elected without the support of most government-employee unions, proposed to cut back the scope of collective bargaining for most state workers. Gov. Scott Walker says the budget measure is needed to save money as well as government jobs for the debt-ridden state. Is the governor’s proposal [...]
21Apr2011 | Sheldon Richman | 3 comments | ContinuedConsumer Spending Drives the Economy?
Consumer spending makes up more than 70 percent of the economy, and it usually drives growth during economic recoveries.” —“Consumers Give Boost to Economy,” New York Times, May 1 Every quarter, when the government releases its latest GDP figures, we hear the familiar refrain: “What the consumer does is vital for economic growth.” “If the [...]
22Sep2010 | Mark Skousen | 26 comments | ContinuedThe Function of The Freeman
Editor’s Note: The Freeman began publication before it became part of the Foundation for Economic Education in 1956. Its first issue was published in 1950, with Henry Hazlitt, author of Economics in One Lesson, as an editor and FEE founder Leonard E. Read a member of the board of directors. What follows was originally part [...]
22Sep2010 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Health Care Debate Was “Meaningful”?
Let’s give credit where credit is due. David Brooks does say one true thing in his New York Times column, “The Values Question”, on government health care reform: “The system after reform will look as it does today, only bigger and more expensive.” Brooks is certainly right that no “health care reform” proposal with any [...]
24Feb2010 | Charles Johnson | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Mandated Health Insurance Outrage
The most outrageous aspect of health care “reform” is the insurance mandate: Every individual will have to buy government-defined comprehensive medical coverage (if it isn’t provided by his employer)—or be fined. You must buy it. Who do these politicians think they are? For those who wonder by what authority the government can make us buy [...]
23Feb2010 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedIndividualism Clashes with Cooperation? It Just Ain’t So!
Individualists get a bad rap in politics these days. That should come as no surprise; politics these days is dominated by electoral politics, and electoral politics is an essentially anti-individualistic enterprise. With free markets and other forms of voluntary association, people who can’t agree on what’s worthwhile can go their own ways. But the point [...]
20Jan2009 | Charles Johnson | 5 comments | ContinuedThe Free Market Is Failing?
There is no doubt the U.S. economy has hit a rough patch over the last several months. As is often the case when economic problems make headlines, pundits rush to declare that capitalism is “in trouble,” or “is ailing” or even “has failed.” This reaction to economic bad news is as old as capitalism itself. [...]
1Dec2008 | Steven Horwitz | 6 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – December 2008
Is the Welfare State Justified? by Daniel Shapiro Cambridge University Press • 2007 • 309 pages • $80.00 hardcover; $27.99 paperback Reviewed by George C. Leef Americans have lived with the welfare state for so long—more than 70 years—that for most, it is simply a fact of life. Asking whether it is justified would seem [...]
1Dec2008 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Subprime Crisis Shows that Government Intervenes Too Little in Financial Markets?
Start with two assumptions. No. 1: banking and financial markets are inherently unstable. No. 2: government intervention into banking and financial markets can only stabilize (never destabilize). You’ll find it easy to conclude that any period of market instability we experience, like the recent subprime-lending problem, is the market’s fault and that it could have [...]
1Oct2008 | Lawrence H. White | 0 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
Mistreating the Constitution? If recent items in The Freeman are any indication, its writers take a rather dim view of the Constitution and the Framers thereof. While I couldn’t agree more regarding the people who wrote our federal compact (with a few exceptions), I must take issue with how the magazine treats the Constitution itself. [...]
1Oct2008 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedThe “Stable Bulwark of Our Liberties”
The U.S. Supreme Court in June struck a blow for the separation of powers and dealt the Bush administration a big setback by ruling that suspects held without charge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have the right to contest their imprisonment under the doctrine of habeas corpus. Simply put, the Court held that the government may [...]
1Sep2008 | Sheldon Richman | 5 comments | ContinuedFreedom Is Not the Issue? It Just Ain’t So!
James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy, Terrorism and Tyranny, Lost Rights, and other books. The Friends of Leviathan are once again encouraging people to forget about freedom. In a May op-ed piece in the New York Times, columnist David Brooks announced, “The central political debate of the 20th century was over the [...]
1Sep2008 | James Bovard | 0 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
Are Corporations Islands of “Calculational Chaos”? According to Kevin Carson (“Hierarchy or the Market,” The Freeman, April 2008), a private business corporation is in effect “an island of calculational chaos in the market economy.” . . . Carson writes, “Those at the top make decisions concerning a production process about which they likely know as [...]
1Sep2008 | FEE Admin | 1 comment | ContinuedHands Off “Windfall” Profits
You don’t have to like the oil companies to reject the windfall-profits tax. All you have to know is that if you tax something, you’ll get less of it. No one can seriously dispute this piece of common sense. That leaves the strong suspicion that the motive for the tax is punitive: those companies are [...]
1Jul2008 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued-
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