All Posts Tagged With: "public policy"
Sowing the Wind: Essays and Articles on Popular Economic Policies that Make Matters Worse
The world we live in today is a global economy. Entrepreneurs, traders, and investors are always searching for opportunities to better serve consumers. As a result, we are all interconnected. When the United States sneezes, so to speak, China, Argentina, or Mexico catches cold. In our economy of complex interrelationships, economic crises with wide-ranging consequences [...]
12Jul2010 | Bettina Bien Greaves | 2 comments | ContinuedDiversity in America: Keeping the Government at a Safe Distance
According to The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a blastula is “a structure, frequently a hollow sphere, formed by the cells of an embryo after cleavage of the ovum and before gastrulation.” Gastrulation, in turn, is “inward migration of the cells of the blastula.” I looked this up after reading the second paragraph of Peter [...]
7Jul2010 | Peter Wood | 0 comments | ContinuedCan Gun Control Work?
Can Gun Control Work? is a first-rate addition to the literature on gun control. The book is not an attempt to advocate either side of the debate. Instead, it is an analysis of whether various types of control can achieve their stated objectives, especially reducing violence and crime. Jacobs concludes that gun control cannot work, [...]
6Jul2010 | Jeffrey Miron | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Myth of the Model
Most people don’t notice it, but “model” may be the most dangerous word in the English language right now. Models justify a lot of the bad policies that have been, or soon will be, foisted on us. For example, what was used to justify the fiscal policy of the big “stimulus”? That’s right. And as [...]
20May2010 | Max Borders | 37 comments | ContinuedNeed and Public Policy: Handle with Care
In public-policy debates the word most commonly invoked as the ace in the hole is “need.” However, “need” needs careful handling. “Need” has the political advantage, but the logical disadvantage, of lacking a clear meaning. That allows it to be systematically abused to distort understanding and to reach desired conclusions that justify picking people’s pockets [...]
1Nov2007 | Gary M. Galles | 0 comments | ContinuedFeeding Bread to Pigs
Years ago a Detroit newspaper reported that in the countryside of the former Soviet Union there were billboards that read, “Comrades, it is unpatriotic to feed bread to your pigs.” As a guy who grew up in rural Nebraska, I found my curiosity aroused. I know something about the eating habits of pigs. They’ll eat [...]
27Jan2003 | Dale M. Haywood | 2 comments | ContinuedBeware "New Urbanism"
Most folks would never consider that the choice between intown and suburban living could hold any moral implications. The questions of cost, security, education options, house size, and yard size are far more important in buyers’ minds. But to those who fear the sprawl of cities into suburbs and beyond, the decision to live either [...]
1Oct2002 | C.C. Kraemer | 2 comments | ContinuedSound Bites and Unsound Decisions
Place: an executive meeting room at Boeing’s headquarters. Background: a meeting is about to commence between Boeing’s chairman and CEO, Phil Condit, and a team of Boeing engineers. The engineers asked for the meeting to explain to Mr. Condit a new method they’ve devised for manufacturing aircraft. By increasing the efficiency of the assembly process, [...]
1Feb2002 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedOn Reading History
Economics is the discipline that I loved first and that I continue to love above all. The economic way of thinking—as the late Paul Heyne called it—is a potent solvent for cutting through the nonsense and irrelevancies that typically loom large in policy discussions. No one lacking a solid grasp of economic principles can understand [...]
1Aug2001 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Quest for Cosmic Justice
The Quest for Cosmic Justice offers no big surprises to anyone familiar with Sowell’s work. Its theme of arrogant elites’ tyrannizing ordinary folk has sounded prominently in Sowell’s writings since at least the late 1970s. But the book percolates throughout with ingenious smaller-scale insights that make it well worth reading. By “cosmic justice” Sowell means [...]
1Jul2000 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedEnvironmental Cancer: A Political Disease
Environmental Cancer: A Political Disease, by S. Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman, is a studied attempt to prove that the phrase “environmental cancer” has been used insincerely by activists, politicians, and the media in an attempt to further public-policy agendas that often undermine individual freedoms. Lichter (president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs) [...]
1Jun2000 | Conrad F. Meier | 0 comments | ContinuedLet Property Settle Smoking Disputes
Andrew Cohen teaches philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. Public policy debates nowadays are often confused about what ought to count as a “public” policy. Injecting a healthy appeal to individual rights could help resolve disputes by showing just what ought to count as anyone’s proper business. The antismoking hysteria gripping America is [...]
1Feb1998 | Andrew I. Cohen | 2 comments | ContinuedPoor Policy: How Government Harms the Poor by D. Eric Schansberg
Westview Press • 1996 • 244 pages • $25.00 George C. Leef is book review editor of The Freeman. As Thomas Sowell correctly observes, before one can be a partisan of the poor, he must first be a partisan of the truth. Unless we understand the truth about the causes of poverty and the truth [...]
1Sep1997 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedGlobal Warming: Not an Immediate Problem
Mr. Bethel resides in Arlington, Virginia. All too often we find ourselves mounting a rearguard action to fend off public policies or programs limiting our choices, costing us money and, generally, making life tougher to live. In many instances during these struggles, we have to be content with small victories: holding social welfare program budgets [...]
1Dec1996 | J. David Bethel | 0 comments | Continued-
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