Perspective

Destroying Value

In Cleveland and other American cities homes are being demolished because five years after the housing bust there is nothing better to do with them. Therein lies a lesson in Austrian business cycle theory. In a world of uncertainty, waste—the destruction of value—is inevitable. Human action, which aims to replace inferior circumstances with superior circumstances, [...]

4Jan2012 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | Continued

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 | Sheldon Richman | 17 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 | Sheldon Richman | 7 comments | Continued

The New Fed

“Things are seldom what they seem.” —W. S. Gilbert, “H.M.S. Pinafore” Nowhere is this more true than in government, which means we have to watch it closely. Unfortunately preconceived notions can make us impervious to events right in front of us and lead us to colossal misperceptions. Take the Federal Reserve System. (All together now: [...]

21Sep2011 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | Continued

Affording It All

People who don’t understand—or who don’t care about—economics say funny things. Well, they would be funny if they weren’t so damaging when translated into government policy. Take Lawrence O’Donnell, host of MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell. He must be a smart guy. He’s articulate. He’s been an adviser to a senator of some [...]

24Aug2011 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | Continued

Medical Consumers or Wards of the State?

Paul Krugman wants to know: “How did it become normal, or for that matter even acceptable, to refer to medical patients as ‘consumers’?” Let’s concede for argument’s sake there is something unattractive about viewing patients as consumers. Krugman writes, “Medical care, after all, is an area in which crucial decisions—life and death decisions—must be made. [...]

22Jun2011 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | Continued

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 | Continued

Wisconsin 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 | Continued

The Civil War and the Statist Mentality

On April 12, 1861, the American Civil War began with the Confederate bombardment of the U.S. military’s Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Nearly four bloody years later to the day, the war ended with Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. This issue of The Freeman is largely devoted to [...]

23Mar2011 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

A Boost for the Managed Economy

Nowhere is it easier to miss the forest for the trees than in discussions of government policy. Late last year the media were saturated with debates over the compromise tax package agreed to by Barack Obama and congressional Republicans. The package that passed the House and Senate included a two-year extension of the Bush-era tax-rate [...]

24Feb2011 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | Continued

Presidential Hubris

If we were going to spend $700 billion, it seems it would be wiser having that $700 billion going to folks who would spend that money right away. In October Barack Obama said this in defense of his opposition to extending the 2001 and 2003 tax-rate reductions for people making more than $200,000 a year. [...]

22Dec2010 | Sheldon Richman | 4 comments | Continued

Not All Choices Are Equal

Opponents of the freedom philosophy never run out of insipid rebuttals. The latest to have a go at it is Martin Wolf of the Financial Times. Wolf ponders the question, “What is the role of the state,” and notes that a “strand” of classical liberalism (or libertarianism) “believes the answer is to define the role [...]

24Nov2010 | Sheldon Richman | 10 comments | Continued

The Most Dangerous Derivative

In the October 1962 issue of The Freeman an obscure 28-year-old lawyer wrote, in one of his first published works, “Giant government has outgrown the capacity of the institutions designed to restrain its encroachments and abuses. . . . [F]reedom, to be meaningful, must find direct expression in practice as well as in principle.” The [...]

22Oct2010 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | Continued

The 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 | Continued

What Does the Oil Spill Prove?

You’ve got to hand it to the people who dislike free markets. They see them everywhere, especially wherever any serious problem arises. That no free market exists within a thousand miles makes no difference whatsoever. Take the oil spill in the Gulf. Market opponents are having a field day. They say this finally demonstrates the [...]

25Aug2010 | Sheldon Richman | 3 comments | Continued

Déjà vu All Over Again

“[A]ll things recur eternally. . . .” ––Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra Sometimes I think Nietzsche was right. It happens when I read things like this from the New York Times last January: “An international team sponsored by the United Nations proposed a detailed, ambitious plan on Monday that it says could halve extreme poverty and [...]

8Jul2010 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

Fiscal Force

I know ev’rybody earns; And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns;” —W. S. Gilbert, Princess Ida April is the cruellest month, for reasons other than what T. S. Eliot had in mind. This is the month in which you must account for yourself to Caesar. The authorities, having relieved you of a goodly [...]

1Jul2010 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | Continued
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