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

The ears of small business America must have perked up when President Obama spoke about that critically important sector in his State of the Union address. Mine certainly did. Here’s when it really got interesting: “I’m . . . proposing a new small business tax credit—one that will go to over one million small businesses [...]

Old, Bold Futility

In economic analysis and policy formulation, profundity is not to be confused with complexity. And simple logic is not the same as simplicity. Reliance in thought and communication on shortcut slogans and mottos yields not solution but fiasco. With employment slumping, many would have us believe in a simplistic “bold economic recovery program.” With vast [...]

Real Jobs Create Wealth

If the government’s projects were truly worthwhile, they would be undertaken by private efforts, and in their quest for profits, entrepreneurs would handle them more efficiently.

Remember this when President Obama begins to boast about how successful his stimulus plan is.

A Matter of Priorities

‘Tis the political season, which means the season to bash immigrants. This goes especially for so-called “illegal aliens,” that is, residents without government papers. (As if that’s a big deal.) Candidates and others who are set on securing the Mexican border—the Canadian border seems of less concern—and expelling those who had the audacity to come [...]

No Jobs for Young People?

In “The Young and the Jobless,” New York Times columnist Bob Herbert recently wrote that “American workers, especially younger workers, remain stuck in a gloomy employment landscape. . . . The simple truth is that there are not nearly enough jobs available for the many millions of out-of-work or under-worked men and women who need [...]

Opponents of the "Crown Jewel"

There was a time when self-reliance wasn’t such a tough sell. Today, however, the thought of dismantling Social Security strikes most as somehow un-American. It is, after all, the “cornerstone of the New Deal.” It saved the poor and elderly from indigence and provided dignity in a monthly paycheck. Legend has it that 70 years [...]

Business and Ethics

The Rev. Edmund Opitz is a contributing editor and a former member of FEE’s staff and board of trustees. This is reprinted from the December 1983 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty. Mr. X manufactures gizmos in a plant which uses the varied skills of a thousand employees. These people might cheerfully acknowledge that [...]

Credentials: Because the Free Market Abhors a Vacuum

Many people gripe about credentialing. The requiring of a credential, it is said, shuts qualified people out of the labor market (much as my lack of demonstrated athletic prowess keeps me from getting that job as an NFL quarterback that I very much want!). Before discussing why credentials have become such an important part of [...]