March 15, 2010
by Paul Jacob "Frankly, I'm an Obama guy . . . You hear these sort-of horror stories about the government is gonna take your property, or they're gonna confiscate your ground, and I always thought it was some sort of...
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10:44 AM
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March 12, 2010
by Ron Paul Last week Congress voted to encourage participation in the 2010 census. I voted “No” on this resolution for the simple, obvious reason that the census- like so many government programs- has grown far beyond what the framers...
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07:22 AM
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March 08, 2010
by Paul Jacob It seems like only yesterday that Burt Rutan flew SpaceShip One into near-orbit and received the Ansari X-Prize for piloting the first manned private craft into space. But it's been five years. Things have happened in the...
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08:15 AM
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March 05, 2010
by Ron Paul Last week I had the opportunity to bring up spending and transparency in two important hearings. On Wednesday I questioned Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on some highly questionable uses of funds at the Federal Reserve, and...
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07:25 AM
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March 03, 2010
Privileges for Some or Rights for All? by Fred E. Foldvary There should be no tax favors for the employees of governments. Tax breaks for “public service” amounts to a tax-free increase in their wages, which does not show up...
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07:53 AM
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March 01, 2010
by Paul Jacob Sometimes you just have to scratch your head. Nathan Koppel, in an article at the Wall Street Journal's online site, finds it odd that a former Bush administration attorney is now in private practice arguing against a...
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10:40 AM
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February 28, 2010
by Ron Paul Last week marked the one year anniversary of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, or the stimulus bill, passing into law. While the debate over its success has been focused on whether or not it is stimulating...
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06:31 AM
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February 24, 2010
If taxed, will day-traders trade at night? by Fred E. Foldvary With the federal budget deficit in the trillions for years to come, and with unemployment remaining high, Congress is seeking to spend money on a jobs program and pay...
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09:03 AM
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February 23, 2010
by Paul Jacob You gotta love trains. You gotta, you might say, since we all pay for them. In taxes, subsidies. The federal government's Amtrak system loses $32 for every passenger -- averaging all the routes. According to a recent...
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05:54 AM
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February 19, 2010
by Ron Paul Last week we were reminded that ours is not the only country suffering from severe economic turmoil. The Greek government is the latest to come close to default on their massive public debt. Greece has insufficient funds...
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06:36 AM
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February 17, 2010
Special Interests Threaten More Than Signature Gatherers by Fred E. Foldvary The forces of the status quo are preventing Californians from changing their constitution. Although most Californians recognize that the state’s political system is kaput, the legal means to change...
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07:45 AM
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February 15, 2010
by Paul Jacob You are "innocent until proven guilty" in America, with one big exception: Under civil forfeiture laws, police don't have to prove that a crime has actually been committed in order to seize your property. And once your...
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07:07 AM
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February 12, 2010
by Ron Paul Last week, the House approved another increase in the national debt ceiling. This means the government can borrow $1.9 trillion more to stay afloat and avoid default. It has been little more than a year since the...
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07:02 AM
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February 11, 2010
Are You Still Working on That? by Fred E. Foldvary I don’t know where waiters go to get trained, but wherever it is, they are teaching waiters bad economics. Waiters end up confusing consumption with production. Consumption means the using...
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06:58 AM
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February 08, 2010
by Paul Jacob Courtesy of the Obama administration, we're experiencing more and more Nixonian moments. Take medical reform. The health insurers started out in Obama's camp. But a shuffling of policies and a few insurance companies began making obvious points...
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08:42 AM
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February 05, 2010
by Ron Paul Last week politicians in Washington made a few things clear about how they really feel about the state of the union. First, they are beginning to hear the growing discontent with the size and scope of government...
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05:58 AM
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February 03, 2010
US GDP Fourth Quarter 2009 by Fred E. Foldvary The US GDP, measuring the output of the economy, was reported at $14.463 trillion as of January 31, 2010. In the fourth quarter of 2009 (October, November, December), the annualized growth...
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06:58 AM
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February 01, 2010
by Paul Jacob Words change over time, in meaning as well as sound. Since much of this comes from misuse, ignorance, laziness, and even wordplay, the more you know and the less fun-loving you are, the more a scold about...
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06:52 AM
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January 29, 2010
by Ron Paul Much has been made recently about the supposed economic recovery. A few blips in a few statistics and many believe our troubles are all over. Of course, they have to redefine recovery as “jobless” to account for...
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06:15 AM
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January 27, 2010
Their History -- Heartbreak After Heartbreak by Fred E. Foldvary The greatest tragedy of the earthquake of 12 January 2010 in Haiti was that the devastation was caused more by human failure than the natural disaster. The earthquake that hit...
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06:14 AM
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January 25, 2010
by Paul Jacob Money. Politicians like to spend it. People -- especially special interests -- like to get it. And taxpayers really don't much like having to pay for all that spending. So our representatives try to procrastinate their balancing...
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09:39 AM
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January 22, 2010
by Ron Paul Last week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off their first round of hearings on the causes of the economic meltdown on Wall Street. The commission is being compared to the the Pecora Commission launched in 1932...
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07:09 AM
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January 20, 2010
Can “fair housing councils” also be predators? by Fred E. Foldvary They call them “landlords,” but they also lease the dwelling places, pieces of buildings, which are capital goods, not land. The “land” lord also provides labor services. They could...
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08:10 AM
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January 19, 2010
by Paul Jacob There’s a lot of talk about the Value Added Tax and its various sister excises, like the Retail Sales Tax and the GST, or Goods and Services Tax. A lot of countries have one or more of...
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07:36 AM
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January 15, 2010
by Ron Paul Last week it was revealed that when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, he urged AIG officials not to disclose to the Securities Exchange Commission relevant details of agreements with banks...
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08:36 AM
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January 13, 2010
Baby's a Tuna, and It's Feeling Blue by Fred E. Foldvary Bluefin tuna are being hunted to extinction. They have already been reduced to a small fraction of the global numbers of a hundred ago. They may disappear from the...
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06:42 AM
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January 11, 2010
by Paul Jacob Is it possible to steal a free good? Ask a lawyer. She’ll look it up, probably in federal court records. Now, our federal courts use a not-very-user-friendly database system, known as PACER, for distributing public records. These...
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07:57 AM
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January 08, 2010
by Ron Paul This past week we celebrated the end of what most people agree was a decade best forgotten. New York Times columnist and leading Keynesian economist Paul Krugman called it the Big Zero in a recent column. He...
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05:56 AM
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January 06, 2010
by Fred E. Foldvary As you read this, fifty trillion neutrinos are passing through your body each second. Neutrinos are tiny neutral particles. The sun emits illions of them, and they pass through the earth without affecting it. We cannot...
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07:12 AM
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January 04, 2010
by Paul Jacob A humungous national debt. Growing state federal government budget deficits. Social Security and Medicare, running out of funds. All very frightening. But look out: The costs of public employee pensions are walloping city and state budgets —...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
11:27 AM
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January 01, 2010
by Ron Paul Last week on Christmas Eve, after many backroom deals were made, the Senate passed the healthcare reform bill with a strictly partisan vote. I was pleased that my colleagues in the GOP are on the right side...
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06:45 AM
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December 31, 2009
Unlimited Subsidy to Land Values by Fred E. Foldvary The US President’s administration announced on 24 December 2009 a holiday gift to American landowners. The government removed the cap it set on subsidies to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the...
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07:46 AM
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December 29, 2009
by Paul Jacob While President Obama flew to foreign lands to lobby for Chicago's Olympic bid, a group of Americans trekked to Canada to find out about government-run health care. Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute in Colorado, visited...
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06:40 AM
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December 23, 2009
Danish Pays Trees by Fred E. Foldvary A “Danish” is a sweet, flaky, layered pastry with fruit, nuts, jam, cheese, or custard in the middle. It is not of Danish origin, but was brought to Denmark by cooks from Austria...
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06:40 AM
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December 21, 2009
by Paul Jacob American politics is often dominated by a myth, the myth of the “mandate.” Mandates, it is said, come from winning elections. The word used to be applied to big wins. Now that's been watered down. But elections...
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07:51 AM
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December 18, 2009
by Ron Paul Last week, in the name of protecting the little guy from Wall Street, the House passed HR 4173 to increase the little guy’s false sense of security in the financial system. This mammoth piece of legislation would...
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08:10 AM
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December 16, 2009
More Pressure on Consumer Sovereignty by Fred E. Foldvary One of the proposals in the restructuring of medical insurance in the USA is to force all adults to buy medical insurance. This calls for an analysis of the moral and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:50 AM
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December 14, 2009
by Paul Jacob The first casualty of war is truth. The first casualty of health care reform? Free speech. While most health care insurers have gone along with reform proposals, even helping write the bills, a few insurance companies fall...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
10:03 AM
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December 11, 2009
by Ron Paul If anyone still doubted that this administration’s foreign policy would bring any kind of change, this week’s debate on Afghanistan should remove all doubt. The President’s stated justifications for sending more troops to Afghanistan and escalating war...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:55 AM
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December 09, 2009
When dealing, the sooner the better by Fred E. Foldvary The U.S. government should negotiate a ceasefire and end to the war in Afghanistan. If such negotiations have occurred, they have not been publicized. It would take political courage to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:53 AM
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December 07, 2009
by Paul Jacob Plastics: yesterday's future, today's convenience. Reading a report from Jefferson City, Missouri, I learned that I already knew something that the politicians in Missouri didn't: The difference between polystyrene and polypropylene. Polystyrene, when expanded, makes that wonderful...
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08:30 AM
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December 04, 2009
by Ron Paul The U.S. Preventive Task Force caused quite a stir recently when they revised their recommendations on the frequency and age for women to get mammograms. Many have speculated on the timing for this government-funded report, with the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:20 AM
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Comments (1)
December 03, 2009
What Policy Makers and Opinion Formers Should Know by Fred E. Foldvary Begin a talk by telling your public what the story is about. There are moral, political, and economic propositions that are fundamental, yet remain misunderstood or unknown. Those...
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07:51 AM
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November 30, 2009
by Paul Jacob Weeks ago, in the debate over whether to euthanize what's left of freedom in American medicine, President Obama made a stunning concession about the so-called "public option" being proposed. Hoping to assure attendees of a townhall meeting...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:24 AM
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November 27, 2009
by Ron Paul I was pleased last week when we won a vote in the Financial Services Committee to include language from the Audit the Fed bill HR1207 in the upcoming financial regulatory reform bill. As it stands now, if...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:27 AM
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November 25, 2009
Cap and Command by Fred E. Foldvary Often laws passed by Congress contain much more than what appears in the title of the legislation. That is the case with the “cap and trade” law passed by the House of Representatives....
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09:53 AM
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November 24, 2009
by Paul Jacob An officially proposed law, set to be voted on next year, would outlaw most home-schooling in Sweden. Government officials in the alleged Scandinavian utopia explain that "there is no need for the law to offer the possibility...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:23 AM
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November 20, 2009
by Ron Paul Last Saturday many concerned Americans watched in horror as the House passed the healthcare reform bill. If this bill makes it through the Senate, it would massively overhaul the way healthcare is delivered in this country. Today,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:13 AM
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November 18, 2009
The Jobs Summit by Fred E. Foldvary President Barack Obama will be hosting a White House forum on jobs in December 2009. Unemployment continued to rise during 2009, and the president seeks to stoke the economy to create more jobs,...
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07:05 AM
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November 16, 2009
by Paul Jacob There's the real world, and there are representations of it. I draw a picture of, say, a gun. That picture is of a gun; it is not itself an actual gun. It's just, well, a doodle. This...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:30 AM
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November 13, 2009
by Ron Paul As Washington continues debating healthcare reform the rest of the country is primarily concerned about jobs and the economy. It is still uncertain what policies will be implemented, but I am certain about one thing: It will...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:20 AM
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November 11, 2009
Values are Subjective by Fred E. Foldvary One of the axioms or premises of economics is that values are subjective. As the Austrian economist Carl Menger said in his 1871 book Principles of Economics, there is no value inherent in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:39 AM
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November 09, 2009
by Paul Jacob Could Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards actually be right about something? Not where to go to get a haircut, mind you, I mean about there being two Americas. There is the vibrant America . . . and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:27 AM
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November 06, 2009
by Ron Paul There has been a lot of talk in Washington recently about senior citizens, mostly about how various healthcare reform models would help or hurt them. But there is another critical issue that has quietly devastated seniors financially...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:04 AM
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November 04, 2009
US GDP 3rd Quarter 2009 by Fred E. Foldvary The US GDP, measuring the output of the economy, was reported at $14.3 trillion as of October 31, 2009. In the third quarter of 2009 (July, August, September), the annualized growth...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:45 AM
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November 02, 2009
by Paul Jacob Until recently, things had been looking up for Niger. Europe provides the nation with quite a bit of dough. Uranium is being mined there. Money money money. Alas, that money perhaps explains President Mamadou Tandja's dissolution of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:09 AM
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October 28, 2009
Who should manage land and natural resources? by Fred E. Foldvary American economists Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson won The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Both of them contributed to the theory of how...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:31 AM
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October 26, 2009
by Paul Jacob Scan the history of government programs. The scope and costs usually grow much larger than originally projected. Moreover, ham-fisted government intervention distorts markets, causing shortages or excesses of supply, leading to high prices for goods that should...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:46 AM
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October 23, 2009
by Ron Paul With a faltering economy, multiple wars, and the approaching demise of the dollar’s reserve status, there are more than enough problems to keep politicians in Washington working day and night. In between handing out cash for clunkers...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:05 AM
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October 21, 2009
Capitalism: a brilliantly confused story by Fred E. Foldvary What is “capitalism”? It is the free market. It is private enterprise. It is a label for the economies of the world. It is the mixed economy, government plus market. It...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:55 AM
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October 19, 2009
by Paul Jacob There is one fact about the health care “reform” legislation being debated in Washington, DC, that is unavoidable. The fact that it is coercive. Governments coerce. It would be great if governmental force were used only to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:27 AM
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October 16, 2009
by Ron Paul This past week there has been a lot of discussion and debate on the continuing war in Afghanistan. Lasting twice as long as World War II and with no end in sight, the war in Afghanistan has...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:36 AM
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Comments (1)
October 14, 2009
...The Pure Free Market by Fred E. Foldvary What exactly is a pure free market? Here is the explanation. Freedom is an absence of restrictions, and in the context of society and economics, the relevant restrictions would be based on...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:35 AM
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Comments (3)
October 12, 2009
by Paul Jacob Historians know how much it cost to build the Parthenon, but we still don't know what's been spent on this past year's economic recovery packages and bailouts. Yes, we still have the clay tablets upon which the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:22 AM
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October 09, 2009
by Ron Paul What if tomorrow morning you woke up to headlines that yet another Chinese drone bombing on US soil killed several dozen ranchers in a rural community while they were sleeping? That a drone aircraft had come across...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:10 AM
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October 07, 2009
Is there a better way to persuade citizens to serve? by Fred E. Foldvary I’ve written on jury duty before (http://www.progress.org/fold99.htm), but that was years ago, and there is a new aspect to it of which I was not previously...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:37 AM
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Comments (3)
October 05, 2009
by Paul Jacob Doctor Alan Dappen wasn't going to take it any more. So he got out. Eight years ago, he decided that his office would no longer accept Medicare payments. Why?As he tells his patients, “We can't afford to.”...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:07 AM
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October 02, 2009
by Ron Paul Last week I was very pleased that the Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, HR 1207. The bill has 295 cosponsors and there is also strong support for the companion bill...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:30 AM
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Comments (5)
September 28, 2009
by Paul Jacob It is at its worst at night, when the wind lets up and the fog is low. “It” is the stench from the sewage treatment plant in New London, Connecticut. Citizens have been complaining for some time....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
10:11 AM
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September 25, 2009
by Ron Paul Two weeks ago, both the administration and the Fed announced with straight faces that the recession was over and the signs of economic recovery were clear. Then last week, the president made a stunning decision that signals...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:41 AM
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Comments (5)
September 23, 2009
How Long Can We Keep Making the Same Mistakes? by Fred E. Foldvary Those who say that we cannot recognize a bubble that we are in are wrong. It is clear that many countries are now in a government debt...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:47 AM
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September 21, 2009
by Paul Jacob Ben Vargas wasn't trying to be the odd man out when he chose to fight for what was right. That's just how it happened. And he got clobbered for it. Several years ago, Lieutenant Vargas was the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
11:21 AM
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September 18, 2009
by Ron Paul Last Wednesday the nation was riveted to the President’s speech on healthcare reform before Congress. While the President’s concern for the uninsured is no doubt sincere, his plan amounts to a magnanimous gift to the health insurance...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:50 AM
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Comments (2)
September 16, 2009
How does the brain handle mystery? by Fred E. Foldvary God is the mystery and the glory and the order that is inherent in nature. There are many religions, each with its own conception of God, and the religion of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:47 AM
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Comments (9)
September 14, 2009
by Paul Jacob All tyrants love unlimited government. But do all advocates of unlimited government love tyranny? Well, recently major fans of big government sure have been blurting out their hysterical hatred for normal democratic disagreement. Take Paul Krugman, New...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:44 AM
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Comments (1)
September 11, 2009
by Ron Paul Things seem to be unraveling quickly for the new administration. The latest unemployment numbers are worse than the last reports. For all the billions of dollars spent and committed to fixing our economic problems, the situation is...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:35 AM
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Clean the air or pick your pocket? by Fred E. Foldvary There is a movement in government circles to bribe less developed countries into accepting limits on their pollution. A document of the G20 Climate Finance Experts Group click here...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:32 AM
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September 07, 2009
by Paul Jacob Ever since the Supreme Court endorsed radically expanded use of eminent domain, in 2005's Kelo v. New London, we have witnessed pitched battles between governments eager to trample property rights and citizens fighting to protect those rights....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:37 AM
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September 04, 2009
by Ron Paul It has been an interesting week indeed for the Federal Reserve. Early this week, it was announced that President Obama intends to reappoint Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to a second term in January, signaling a vote of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:41 AM
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Comments (2)
September 02, 2009
We're not talking about departed senators by Fred E. Foldvary Liberalism has been decaying for several decades, and may finally have died in the year 2009. To explain this tragic loss, we need to understand what liberalism is. The word...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:07 AM
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Comments (3)
August 31, 2009
by Paul Jacob Imagine being on the edge of your seat for some 20 years. It's a long time to wait for anything, especially about whether you can keep doing business on your own property. That's what Karen Haug and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
10:25 AM
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August 29, 2009
by Ron Paul During August recess, many legislators have heard an unexpected amount of discontent from their constituents about what is happening on Capitol Hill, particularly regarding healthcare. Some people are justifiably terrified at what the government could do to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:24 AM
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Comments (2)
August 26, 2009
Let Government Cheapen All Basics? by Fred E. Foldvary An important element of proposed changes in the US federal medical care policy has been a “public option,” a government-run medical plan that would compete with private medical services. What has...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:10 AM
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Comments (1)
August 24, 2009
by Paul Jacob A few years ago, stories of Americans going to Canada to buy cheaper drugs were all the rage. Here's a twist on that: Canadians going to Mexico to get cheaper drugs. The Canadian government has been intercepting...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:09 AM
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August 21, 2009
by Ron Paul Since the bailouts last fall, lawmakers have been behaving as quasi-owners of the bailed-out banks and businesses, leading to calls for increased regulation of executive compensation and other wasteful expenditures. We have heard much about bonuses and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:12 AM
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August 19, 2009
What's the fun of being boss if you don’t boss? by Fred E. Foldvary Old folks, having worked hard all their lives, now want to enjoy their retirement. Many go to senior centers for recreation, and playing cards provides a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:51 AM
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Comments (1)
August 17, 2009
by Paul Jacob Tolls on bridges and roads used to be common. Before the federal government began writing humungous checks for infrastructure, the rule was to loan localities money. The feds would get paid back from tolls collected. Earlier, private...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:56 AM
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August 14, 2009
by Ron Paul The Cash for Clunkers program has received a lot of attention this week on Capitol Hill and across the country. The program offers a voucher of up to $4500 in federal funds to anyone who trades in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:39 AM
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August 12, 2009
What Should Be Private? by Fred E. Foldvary The scope of government has escalated during the past 100 years, so that government now dominates the economy. There was a rollback in the old Soviet Union and its satellites, but otherwise...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:54 AM
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Comments (4)
August 10, 2009
by Paul Jacob The good sense that California voters exhibited at the polls in May has been rewarded with continual attack and derision. Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO and Republican candidate for governor, recently said, “In many ways, the proposition...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:16 AM
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August 07, 2009
by Ron Paul As the healthcare debate rages on, there is one reality that even the proponents of this hostile takeover of healthcare by government cannot ignore – and that is money. The government simply does not have the money...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:09 AM
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Comments (12)
August 05, 2009
Stopping Falling Means We're Still At Bottom by Fred E. Foldvary The economic recession that began in 2007 will most likely end this year 2009. To “recede” means to fall, and a recession means a fall in national output. When...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:46 AM
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Comments (1)
August 03, 2009
by Paul Jacob Does cinematic celebrity protect a person against arbitrary governmental stomping, or bulldozing, of one's human rights to property? Maybe it does if you live in Beverly Hills. But the answer's a big No if you dwell in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:04 AM
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July 31, 2009
by Ron Paul Healthcare continues to dominate the agenda on Capitol Hill as House leadership and the administration try to ram through their big government healthcare plan. Fortunately, they have been unsuccessful so far, as there are many horrifying provisions...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:30 AM
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Comments (2)
July 29, 2009
What Government Could Do to Help Our Health by Fred E. Foldvary There are two directions for the reform of the U.S. medical services systems. One is towards welfare statism, the control of the medical system by the federal government,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:34 AM
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Comments (5)
July 27, 2009
by Paul Jacob Things sure have changed since I was a kid. It used to be okay to smile. Encouraged even. And hugging someone was considered nice, friendly, compassionate. Today, in my home state of Virginia, the Department of Motor...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:32 AM
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Comments (1)
July 24, 2009
by Ron Paul Political philosopher Richard Weaver famously and correctly stated that ideas have consequences. Take for example ideas about rights versus goods. Natural law states that people have rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A good...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
10:44 AM
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Comments (4)
July 22, 2009
Do Rights Pre-date Governments? by Fred E. Foldvary When Supreme-Court nominee judge Sotomayor was asked whether there is a right to self-defense, she did not say “yes.” Her answer was that it would depend on state law. Moreover, when asked...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:13 AM
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Comments (1)
July 20, 2009
by Paul Jacob One of my favorite uncles used to jokingly tell us kids to “go play in traffic.” In reality, not so good for kids. Or for politicians. Maryland's recent Senate Bill-277 brought this to mind. It authorizes the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
11:31 AM
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Comments (4)
July 17, 2009
by Ron Paul Last week I was very pleased that hearings were held on the independence of the Federal Reserve system. My bill HR 1207, known as the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, was discussed at length, as well as the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:25 AM
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Comments (2)
July 15, 2009
What would be heaven's economy? by Fred E. Foldvary In July 2009 Pope Benedict XVI published “Caritas in Veritate” (Charity in Truth), his first papal encyclical on economic policy. He criticizes the concept that the goal of private companies should...
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06:45 AM
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July 13, 2009
by Paul Jacob Here's an idea about how to help businesses survive in this troubled economic climate: Stop allowing an unaccountable regulatory board — unclad by even a fig leaf of constitutionality — to ride roughshod over public companies. In...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:58 AM
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July 10, 2009
by Ron Paul Every year on the Fourth of July we remember our founding fathers and the precious inheritance of freedom that they secured for us. Every year it seems we get further and further away from that birthright, but...
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05:57 PM
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July 08, 2009
All about the world of price by Fred E. Foldvary “Demand” means a list of prices and the quantities that people buy or would buy at those prices, holding all other variables constant. The demand can be either during a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:59 AM
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July 06, 2009
by Paul Jacob The Motorhome Diaries, or MHD, is a documentary project by Jason Talley, Pete Eyre, and Adam Mueller. Jason and Pete are both former heads of Bureaucrash, a website that lampoons government bureaucracy and big, intrusive government in...
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07:52 AM
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July 03, 2009
by Ron Paul In my last column, I joked that with public spending out of control and the piling on of the international bailout bill, economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress. It is getting harder to joke...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:17 AM
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Comments (8)
July 01, 2009
What the conventional guys couldn't do, our guy can by Fred E. Foldvary There have been comments in the media saying that the Great Recession of 2008-9 shows that economic theory has failed, and that we need a theory that...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:26 AM
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Comments (6)
June 29, 2009
by Paul Jacob You've probably heard of Twitter, now that Oprah has. It is a "micro-blogging" tool that lets you keep in touch with people by sending messages of 140 characters or less, maybe 30 words. Senders are supposed to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:20 AM
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June 26, 2009
by Ron Paul Last week Congress passed the war supplemental appropriations bill. In an affront to all those who thought they voted for a peace candidate, the current president will be sending another $106 billion we don’t have to continue...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:04 AM
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Comments (1)
June 24, 2009
Vote for a Neighbor or a Stranger? by Fred E. Foldvary The protests about the election for president of Iran, and the violent response of the government, do not just indicate a problem with the vote count, but more deeply...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:34 AM
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June 22, 2009
by Paul Jacob Add one more news story to all the others about how your private data is not secure in any database. In May, a gang of hackers demanded $10 million ransom in exchange for not posting the personal...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:26 AM
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Comments (5)
June 19, 2009
by Ron Paul Last week, another bill was passed and signed into law that takes more of our freedoms and violates the Constitution of the United States. It was, of course, done for the sake of the children, and in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:03 AM
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Comments (6)
June 17, 2009
Redistribution -- an Unnecessary Evil by Fred E. Foldvary Almost everybody now favors the redistribution of income and wealth by the state. Even most free-market libertarians are in favor of implicit redistribution, the increase in land rent and land value...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:26 AM
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Comments (6)
June 15, 2009
by Paul Jacob Awards, known as the Sammies, are given annually by the Sam Adams Alliance to recognize the efforts of citizen activists fighting governmental lunacies. This year's winners for best video, Caleb Brown and Austin Bragg, produced a film...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:04 AM
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June 12, 2009
by Ron Paul Last week, General Motors finally declared bankruptcy. Many in government thought $20 billion in taxpayer dollars would save the company, but as predicted, it only postponed the inevitable. The government will dump another $30 billion into GM...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:11 AM
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Comments (7)
June 10, 2009
FBI cracks down on people using their own money by Fred E. Foldvary The federal government continues to enforce its money monopoly under the new Obama presidency. In June 2009 the FBI arrested the chiefs of the private Liberty Dollar...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:36 AM
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Comments (1)
June 09, 2009
by Paul Jacob A viral video is making the rounds of Latin America. You can find it on YouTube. It's an interview with a man on the street, and another Cuban man walks up and steals the show. He points...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:48 AM
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Comments (2)
June 05, 2009
by Ron Paul With a faltering economy, and skyrocketing costs, healthcare continues to be a critical issue for all Americans. Unfortunately government encroachment into the doctor/patient relationship is poised to exacerbate our problems with healthcare. As an OB/GYN with over...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:07 AM
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Comments (0)
June 02, 2009
When disputes end up in court, only lawyers win by Fred E. Foldvary The government of the State of California has declared war on all-ages nightclubs, and now the recession and the costs of the anti-club war is pushing many...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:56 AM
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June 01, 2009
by Paul Jacob John Murtha, a Pennsylvania congressman going on 36 years, may be today's uncrowned "king of pork." Recently, he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "If I'm corrupt, it's because I take care of my district." Murtha was responding to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:25 AM
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May 29, 2009
by Ron Paul While Congress is sidetracked by who said what to whom and when, our nation finds itself at a crossroads on the issue of torture. We are at a point where we must decide if torture is something...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:48 AM
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May 27, 2009
Does an apple a day really work? by Fred E. Foldvary You can shrink your lifetime medical costs by eliminating the food tax you impose on yourself. Just as taxes on wages and goods impose an excess burden on the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:38 AM
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Comments (2)
May 26, 2009
by Paul Jacob If a promise is important, clear, specific — and keeping it would be honorable — well then, it's bad to break it. Alas, political candidates make and break such promises all the time. They make the promises...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:44 AM
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May 22, 2009
by Ron Paul I have been very pleased with the progress of my legislation, HR 1207, which calls for a complete audit of the Federal Reserve and removes many significant barriers towards transparency of our monetary system. This bill now...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:37 AM
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May 19, 2009
This tax shelter makes you wonder about the tax by Fred E. Foldvary Many workers have been saving money for retirement in 401(k) accounts. These are programs sponsored by employers in which the interest and capital gains are not taxed...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:09 AM
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Comments (1)
May 18, 2009
by Paul Jacob It takes guts and self-confidence to buck a trend, especially to buck a boom. So most contrarians keep a low profile. Meet Plano, Texas, banker Andy Beal. I read about him in the pages of Forbes magazine,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:02 AM
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May 15, 2009
by Ron Paul While much of the country’s attention is on other issues, a serious situation is developing in Pakistan that threatens to plunge us into another fruitless and bloody war. It is very frustrating to see that many who...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:52 AM
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May 13, 2009
Humanity II by Fred E. Foldvary Humanity has gotten itself into a mess, and the mess itself prevents a cure. Bad policies, such as environmental destruction, which had previously been done on a small scale, are now happening on a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:08 AM
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May 11, 2009
by Paul Jacob When Ted Stevens, former senator from Alaska, was convicted on seven felony counts of corruption, I stressed that what I knew about Stevens's corruption was not what was debated in court but what happened, quite openly, in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:52 AM
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Comments (2)
May 08, 2009
by Ron Paul This week, concerns about swine flu have dominated the media and many government officials. While the American people should be made aware of infectious diseases and common sense preventative measures, much of the hysterical reaction from government...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:55 AM
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Comments (1)
May 07, 2009
By Christina Walsh Do not be misled by Governor Barbour’s call for a special session to address Mississippi’s eminent domain laws. He is not interested in protecting your property. As clearly expressed in his veto message on H.B. 803, Barbour...
Posted by KevinRollins at
03:06 PM
May 05, 2009
For a turn around, good news and bad by Fred E. Foldvary The gross domestic product of the United States fell sharply in the first three months of 2009, but shows signs that the recession is decelerating. The national income...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:40 AM
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May 04, 2009
by Paul Jacob Senator John Kerry is incensed. He used the word “cheat.” Senator Jeff Bingham insists Congress was not trying to make a tax loophole. The fracas is over a four-year-old tax credit given to companies that mix biofuels...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:04 AM
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April 30, 2009
The Slowdown Slows Down -- that's good, right? by Fred E. Foldvary Excuse me, but I’m going to get mathematical. A recession means that the output of an economy is declining. The rate of decline is the slope of the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:32 AM
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Comments (2)
April 27, 2009
by Paul Jacob Informal production and distribution, from small farms and homes, were once not only common, but the backbone of everyday life. Today, there's a revival of much of this, as people begin to realize that corporate practices have...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:02 AM
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April 24, 2009
by Ron Paul The recent episode with the Somali pirates has brought to the forefront many questions about maritime security. What is the best way to deal with a gang of criminals, not acting on behalf of any country, when...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:44 AM
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April 21, 2009
Living means killing by Fred E. Foldvary Evolution played a trick on shrimps, crabs, and lobsters, making them taste good when cooked. Lobsters area a gourmet food and favorite regular food in areas where they live. But when a live...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:42 AM
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April 20, 2009
by Paul Jacob How many people does it take to run a civilization? Lots. And the more things you are doing — the more productive and wealthier you want your civilization to be — the more people it can use....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:42 AM
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Comments (1)
April 17, 2009
by Ron Paul Taxes are the issue this week as Americans struggle to make the April 15th deadline to file their returns. It is a good time to contemplate the effects of big government and what it does to our...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:52 AM
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April 14, 2009
Why try to counter bad results instead of not cause them? by Fred E. Foldvary As climate change takes an increasing toll on human activity, there are proposals to engineer a slowdown or reversal in global warming. Climate engineering or...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:19 AM
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Comments (2)
April 13, 2009
by Paul Jacob Remember Robocop? The clobbering of the bad guys by the cyberonic cop was a tad too bloodthirsty for my taste. And the satire wasn't exactly as subtle as Huxley's or Orwell's. Still, today's economic news makes me...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:10 AM
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April 10, 2009
by Ron Paul Last week the House passed another budget that increases federal power, raises taxes, and increases the national debt. I voted against it, and was pleased to see that not a single Republican representative voted for it. Legislators...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:30 AM
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Comments (3)
April 08, 2009
The Margin of Production -- a video script by Fred E. Foldvary Economics classes are turning to videos, including songs and stories, for lessons, so here is a script for a video on the margin of production. We start with...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:03 AM
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Comments (0)
April 07, 2009
by Paul Jacob People often complain about executive pay. I don't. What other people get paid isn’t my business. But after we discovered that many of the major companies bailed out by our government went on to give their execs...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:11 AM
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April 03, 2009
by Ron Paul We have recently heard many shocking stories of brutal killings and ruthless violence related to drug cartels warring with Mexican and US officials. It is approaching the fever pitch of a full blown crisis. Unfortunately, the administration...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:54 AM
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Comments (2)
March 31, 2009
Are they criminals or unabashed pranksters? by Fred E. Foldvary It is said by physiologists that the human brains are not fully developed until the child has become an adult. Teenagers do not have full cognitive powers, which is a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:36 AM
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Comments (1)
March 30, 2009
by Paul Jacob You've heard the calumny: The current economic debacle is the result of free markets. This charge -- often made with lip-smacking glee -- makes no sense. I've discussed some specifics, before. Here are three more points: 1....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:12 AM
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Comments (1)
March 23, 2009
by Paul Jacob I have a prediction. Even though President Obama insists that all of the trillions in so-called "stimulus" spending will be expertly managed and masterfully allocated -- of course, to only the most deserving and stimulating beneficiaries --...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:10 AM
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March 20, 2009
by Ron Paul Earmarks seem to be the hot topic this week, and as a fiscal conservative I am dismayed so many people deliberately distort the earmarking process and grandstand to make political points. It is an easy thing to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:44 AM
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March 17, 2009
Seven rules for next time? by Fred E. Foldvary The financial crash and recession of 2008-9 has wrecked the financial dreams of many investors. Those hardest hit had not adhered to the rules for wise investing. They concentrated their holdings...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:28 AM
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Comments (1)
March 16, 2009
by Paul Jacob I don't side with Bernie Sanders very often, but Vermont's favorite socialist son occasionally brightens our capitol with something surprising. Early in March, the senator challenged Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke with an interesting question: "Will you...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:24 AM
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March 13, 2009
by Ron Paul Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:16 AM
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March 10, 2009
Put some PEP into Labor by Fred E. Foldvary During this Great Depression II, government has responded to rapidly rising unemployment by providing more unemployment benefits. The 2009 stimulus program increased unemployment insurance benefits, and it finances extensions of compensation...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:38 AM
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Comments (3)
March 09, 2009
by Paul Jacob "During melting markets, all pension funds come under siege." I'm quoting from a February article by John Entine. This Reason magazine cover story is entitled "The Next Catastrophe," and, like so many things these days, it's scary....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:54 AM
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March 06, 2009
by Ron Paul This week, Congress and the administration once again showed their lack of economic understanding, as they ramped up spending to record levels. On the surface, maybe it does look to some like the economic crisis is a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:32 AM
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Comments (2)
March 03, 2009
If you have a tax, should you have a tax credit? by Fred E. Foldvary The federal government budget proposed by the president imposes higher taxes on incomes above $250,000. One of the provisions is that charitable donations would no...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
11:55 AM
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Comments (5)
March 02, 2009
by Paul Jacob Four executives of Google — call them the Milan Four — are on trial in Italy for the crime of being employed by Google when an objectionable video was posted to a Google video site. The charges...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:24 AM
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Comments (3)
by Paul Jacob Four executives of Google — call them the Milan Four — are on trial in Italy for the crime of being employed by Google when an objectionable video was posted to a Google video site. The charges...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:24 AM
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Comments (3)
February 27, 2009
by Ron Paul This week the Federal Reserve responded to the American people’s increased concerns over our monetary policy by presenting new initiatives aimed at enhancing the Fed’s transparency and accountability. As someone who has called for more openness from...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:06 AM
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Comments (2)
February 26, 2009
by Michael Owen Recently, I was watching the Fox Business coverage of Harry Markopolos' congressional testimony regarding the Madoff pyramid scheme scandal. If you don't know the story, Markopolos (among many other whistleblowers) had warned the SEC for approaching a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:01 AM
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February 25, 2009
Should we punish or modify bad behavior? by Fred E. Foldvary Suppose somebody is walking along the sidewalk carrying a big sign saying “I hate you.” Is he violating your natural rights? Should the state prohibit him from being annoying?...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:34 AM
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Comments (3)
February 24, 2009
How the Way of Peace Helps Guide Us In Turbulent Times by Robert Capozzi As we enter the final stretch of the 21st century's first decade, it's becoming apparent that our civilization's search for certainty has proven to be hopelessly...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:43 AM
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February 23, 2009
by Paul Jacob You may have heard about Barack Obama's desire for greater transparency in government. Policy will now favor ready revelation, he has said. No more unnecessary dark secrets about governmental doings. As a U.S. senator, Obama made a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:10 AM
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Comments (1)
February 20, 2009
by Ron Paul Much has been made by the new administration of the idea of national service and volunteerism. While service to one’s community is certainly admirable, it is not the federal government’s place to “encourage” or promote volunteerism. Moreover,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:02 AM
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Comments (7)
by Michael Owen In his recent blog post, “Defending the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit,” Carl Milsted recognizes the problems that led to the housing market collapse, while relying on the same faulty reasoning government planners use — an outlook...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:41 AM
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Comments (5)
February 19, 2009
by Kevin D. Rollins “Rationality” is a quality that we ascribe to those who make reasonable, good decisions. In economics, it is tied to the concept of means-ends matching – choosing the right tool for the job, so to speak....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:17 AM
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Comments (1)
February 17, 2009
Conventioneers shooed away by Obama by Fred E. Foldvary Companies and organizations are canceling plans to hold conventions in Las Vegas. President Obama stated that companies should not have events in Las Vegas “on the taxpayer’s dime.” This is not...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:06 AM
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Comments (1)
February 16, 2009
by Paul Jacob Should Doug Guetzloe go to jail for speaking his mind? I say No. That's not State Attorney Lawson Lamar's answer. Lamar tried to imprison Guetzloe for 14 years. In 2006, Doug Guetzloe distributed a flyer about mayoral...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:02 AM
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Comments (4)
February 13, 2009
by Ron Paul President Obama signed an executive order last week continuing the faith-based initiatives program created by former President Bush. When the program was created, I warned that giving taxpayer money to private religious organizations would eventually lead to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:28 AM
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Comments (3)
February 12, 2009
by Micah Tillman “Whatever happened to liberaltarianism?” Jonah Goldberg (National Review’s resident libertarian watcher) wondered aloud yesterday. Referring specifically to the work of Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson, Goldberg wrote: “It seems to me that the stimulus debate clearly puts...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:57 AM
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Comments (6)
February 10, 2009
Not everything that sounds good is good by Fred E. Foldvary The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) gives some house buyers an interest-free loan for buying a house. A married couple can reduce their federal income taxes...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:46 AM
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Comments (14)
February 09, 2009
by Paul Jacob “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Or maybe not: I prefer it when “cooler heads prevail.” But as our times get desperate, here comes Tony Blankley with a new book, True Grit. Blankley calls for a universal...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:18 AM
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Comments (1)
February 06, 2009
by Ron Paul I have recently had several opportunities on various news programs to discuss the economy and what is wrong with the so-called economic stimulus package. I have said over and over what we shouldn’t be doing, and now...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:40 AM
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Comments (8)
February 05, 2009
by Micah Tillman Biden, Richardson, Geithner, Killefer, Daschle. As Obama continues to pick his disciples, the “Peter Ratio” (the ratio of those who embarrass themselves to those who don’t) grows. “President” = “Executive Branch Manager.” We just lived through eight...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:56 AM
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Comments (5)
February 03, 2009
Can the year of the ox become the year of the bull? by Fred E. Foldvary On January 30, 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced its calculation of the GDP for the fourth quarter (last three months) of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:57 AM
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Comments (1)
February 02, 2009
by Paul Jacob In Franz Kafka’s famous-but-incomplete novel, Amerika, his protagonist treks to our brave new world only to repeatedly find himself persecuted by a bizarre assortment of authorities. That was fiction. How’s our factual world? Today, our governments —...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:03 AM
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Comments (1)
January 30, 2009
by Ron Paul This week the House passed an $819 billion economic stimulus package. In reality, this bill is just an escalation of a government-created economic mess. As before, a sense of urgency and impending doom is being used to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:30 AM
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Comments (17)
January 29, 2009
by Micah Tillman Waking up to the same headlines morning after morning is nauseating. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough. Crisis mode can only last so long before you either puke and crawl off into a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:48 AM
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Comments (0)
January 27, 2009
Avoid going broke by hedging on the economy by Fred E. Foldvary Many companies are going bankrupt. Restaurants, shops, and manufacturers are shutting down. There is little a business can do when the demand for its products falls, and it...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:43 AM
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Comments (0)
January 26, 2009
by Paul Jacob Shocking news: Congressional leaders demand to be paid just one dollar a year! Thus they acknowledge their own flagrant irresponsibility in causing the economic crisis. According to congressional leaders, “Our mammoth fiscal irresponsibility is the single biggest...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:55 AM
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Comments (0)
January 23, 2009
by Ron Paul The economic situation continues to deteriorate this week as past and future bailouts were discussed on Capitol Hill. The debate was over the accountability of already disbursed TARP money, and on whether or not to release remaining...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:05 AM
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Comments (0)
January 22, 2009
by Micah Tillman Philosophers divide the history of the West into four Ages. The only real question is which we are in. Have we left—or are we in danger of leaving—the the Modern Age and entering the Postmodern Age? Some...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:04 AM
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Comments (5)
January 20, 2009
Help make his changes matter by Fred E. Foldvary A crisis is an opportunity for revolutionary change. Obama could become the greatest president ever, and fulfill the hopes he inspired, by making radical changes. He could put the economy on...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:34 AM
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Comments (3)
January 19, 2009
by Paul Jacob Have I stumbled upon an alternative universe? There is a congressman actually making sense. Well, to be more precise, he’s not yet a congressman, he’s Congressman-Elect Jared Polis, a Democrat from Colorado. Polis is a supporter of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:09 AM
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Comments (0)
January 14, 2009
by Micah Tillman Whether you focus with Barnes on ten things Bush got right, or with Lowry on ten things he got wrong, Bush needs forgiveness. (Needs, not necessarily deserves.) Yet some of us find it easier to forgive certain...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:30 AM
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Comments (4)
January 13, 2009
Telling us about a problem we can fix by Fred E. Foldvary I.O.USA, a film about the US debts and deficits, has been playing in theaters and on television. I saw it on CNN. The producer, the Peter G. Peterson...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:09 AM
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Comments (0)
January 12, 2009
by Paul Jacob You may have a right to change your government . . . but that doesn’t mean government won’t fight back. In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, there was disagreement over a firehouse, whether it should be decommissioned, or not. The...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:25 AM
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Comments (0)
January 09, 2009
by Ron Paul Last week I discussed our worsening economic situation and the fact that there are very few options for the new administration to improve things in the long run. The same is not true on the foreign policy...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:41 AM
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Comments (0)
January 08, 2009
by Micah Tillman The West beat Russia in Cold War I through economics, they say. Rather than killing them, we out-succeeded them. Money is power, and our system worked better at getting us money than theirs. If that's true, then...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:40 AM
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Comments (3)
January 06, 2009
What does the FTC have against organic grocery stores? by Fred E. Foldvary I previously wrote on the government’s crazy attempt to prevent the merger of organic food sellers Whole Foods and Wild Oats (“Whole Phooey on Antimonopoly Action,” http://www.progress.org/2007/fold513.htm)....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:36 AM
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January 05, 2009
by Paul Jacob We have all heard of “dumpster babies,” abandoned newborns left to die by unfit parents. And now, courtesy of Nebraska’s not-too-careful legislature, we have “dumpster teens” — near-adult youngsters left with the state of Nebraska by their...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:59 AM
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Comments (2)
January 02, 2009
by Ron Paul As another year draws to a close, there are some important transitions ahead of us. Not just transitions to a new administration, but also economically, politically and culturally. Many hoped that the changes would signify overwhelming positive...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:57 AM
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Comments (0)
January 01, 2009
by Micah Tillman Because of term limits, we all get to watch Presidents end their lives twice. As they become lame ducks, they shift into "legacy building mode." They do crazy things, launch large projects, talk to reporters about "how...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:39 AM
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Comments (1)
December 31, 2008
May the promised change be true and enough by Fred E. Foldvary Many economists and financial analysts are making conjectures about when the recession will bottom out and how strong the recovery will be. The speed of recovery depends on...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:54 AM
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Comments (0)
December 30, 2008
by Paul Jacob An “Untouchable” in India’s caste system has changed his mind. Chandra Bhan Prasad, an Indian writer and activist, was once the worst kind of socialist. According to a profile in the New York Times, he had been...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:01 AM
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Comments (0)
December 24, 2008
by Micah Tillman It’s a(n) historical thing, more than a religious thing. Or, rather, because it’s a religious thing, it became a(n) historical thing. Either way, liberalism (I speak of the classical version) owes a lot to Christmas. Dare I...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:46 AM
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Comments (5)
December 23, 2008
California lawyers make helping one in danger risky by Fred E. Foldvary It is common knowledge that in the U.S., lawyers have an enormous influence on government. The “American Association for Justice,” which used to be more honestly called the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:10 AM
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Comments (1)
December 22, 2008
by Paul Jacob Some people have this idea that if the end is good then whatever means they choose must be good, too. But no. Principles matter — they exist to help us choose the right means and oppose the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:03 AM
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Comments (0)
December 19, 2008
by Ron Paul The freedom to fail is an essential part of freedom. Government- provided financial security necessitates relinquishing the very essence of freedom. Last week, the big 3 American automakers came back to Capitol Hill with their hands out...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:53 AM
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Comments (1)
December 18, 2008
by Micah Tillman Bernard Madoff is a capitalist, if the charges are true. And Madoff shows you what capitalism gets you: misery. Most people, however, aren’t capitalists. Even most libertarians — whom Brian Doherty calls “Radicals for Capitalism” — aren’t...
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06:22 AM
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Comments (1)
December 16, 2008
The only defense is mutual tolerance by Fred E. Foldvary The current economic crash is a disaster, but we can recover from it. Maybe we can feel better, or maybe even worse, if we contemplate catastrophes which thankfully have not...
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06:56 AM
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December 15, 2008
by Paul Jacob The Sunshine Review newsletter from the Sam Adams Alliance reports an amazing instance of bureaucratic dimwittery. It seems that the county clerk in the county I grew up in — Pulaski County, Arkansas — also likes the...
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06:48 AM
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Comments (1)
December 12, 2008
by Ron Paul Tragically, over the Thanksgiving holiday, the world was reminded how evil and cruel people can be. According to emerging accounts of the events in India, about a dozen well-armed and devastatingly well-trained terrorists laid siege on the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:21 AM
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Comments (4)
December 11, 2008
by Micah Tillman The most amusing part of the Blagojevich/Obama Scandal is how terrible everyone is at censoring themselves. Take Patrick Fitzgerald, for instance. It would seem from his press conference Tuesday, that “bleep” is his favorite new word. “‘If...
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06:58 AM
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Comments (0)
December 09, 2008
Once the bailout trillions trickle down ... by Fred E. Foldvary The late deflation of 2008 will turn into the great inflation of 2009. In the last months of 2008, the US economy experienced deflation, falling prices. House prices had...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:06 AM
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Comments (2)
December 08, 2008
by Paul Jacob American city planners tend to obsess over trains. Though not nearly as economical as buses, light rail trains are regarded as the gold standard in public transportation. But ten years after Portland established its westside line, just...
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06:29 AM
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Comments (0)
December 05, 2008
by Ron Paul As the printing presses for the bailouts run at full speed, those in power are no longer even pretending that the new giveaways will fix our problems. Now that we are used to rewarding failure with taxpayer-funded...
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06:01 AM
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December 04, 2008
by Micah Tillman Here in DC, the Metro is getting into the Christmas spirit. They’re running hypocritical and scroogy Chevron ads (“You hog. Stop using energy! *wink, wink*”) everywhere. They’re threatening to randomly search our bags of goodies. (Santa beware!)...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:55 AM
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Comments (1)
December 02, 2008
Pass on symptoms, fix the system by Fred E. Foldvary To “extirpate” means to completely eliminate, from the Latin word meaning to pull out by stem and root. To extirpate poverty means to eliminate its cause, so that it does...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:23 AM
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Comments (1)
December 01, 2008
by Paul Jacob The fear of falling is innate. Newborns have it. The fear of falling prices is different. What? Who fears falling prices? Politicians and investors and the big boys in big business, that’s who. When all sorts of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:50 AM
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November 28, 2008
by Ron Paul This week the bailout of the Big Three automakers was under heavy consideration in Congress’s lame duck session. I have always opposed government bailouts of private organizations. Back in 1979 Congress had hearings about bailing out Chrysler...
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06:13 AM
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November 26, 2008
by Micah Tillman Thanksgiving is one of our more adaptable religious holidays. You can be an atheist and still celebrate it in (almost) its original sense. It is completely possible to be thankful without needing a deity, in other words....
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06:52 AM
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Comments (0)
November 25, 2008
Build infrastructure for public use, not just for jobs by Fred E. Foldvary President-elect Obama’s plan for a massive national public works project will fail to revive the economy. Such works did not end the Great Depression, and they did...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:20 AM
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Comments (1)
November 24, 2008
by Paul Jacob Aliens take over government! Soviets control U.S. weather! Ancient Mayan temple has Sandisk flash drive! If you’ve ever been to a supermarket, you’ve seen these and other ludicrous mile-high headlines blaring from the newsstands. Here’s another impossible...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:56 AM
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Comments (1)
November 21, 2008
by Ron Paul As the financial sector continues its tailspin despite efforts to bail out Wall Street, among the few gainers in recent stock trading have been those companies looking for a new “shot in the arm” with government funding...
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06:01 AM
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November 20, 2008
by Micah Tillman Traditionalists and Reformers. To David Brooks you’re one or the other (if you’re a conservative). And he’s the other. But in the process of making his argument, Brooks proves himself wrong. What Brooks shows us is that...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:30 AM
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Comments (5)
November 18, 2008
Free Banking Explained by Fred E. Foldvary Free Banking is free-market banking. In pure free banking, the money supply and interest rates are handled by private enterprise, there is no restriction on peaceful and honest banking services, and there is...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:47 AM
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Comments (3)
November 17, 2008
by Paul Jacob Here’s one way to reduce your crime statistics: jail victims who report crime. That’s the latest method of crime-stopping in Shreveport, Louisiana. Starting October 15, gas station owners and even attendees will be culpable if a thief...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:38 AM
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Comments (1)
November 14, 2008
by Ron Paul With the election behind us, our country turns hopeful eyes to the future. I have a few hopes of my own. I congratulate our first African-American president-elect. Martin Luther King, Jr. certainly would be proud to see...
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05:58 AM
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Comments (0)
November 13, 2008
by Micah Tillman When Detroit goes under, your world will fall apart. Everyone’s will. Every business and organization in your community is somehow connected to the automotive industry. So the Coming Big 3 Collapse won’t just be bad for autoworkers....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:29 AM
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Comments (2)
November 11, 2008
Americans need to hear what works by Fred E. Foldvary The Republican Party of the USA has been defeated, discredited, trounced, and rejected. After promising a “new contract for America” and smaller, more effective governance, the Republicans, after taking control,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
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Comments (3)
November 10, 2008
by Paul Jacob Interior design: Most homeowners wing it, but a few call in the professionals. Regulation of interior design: Most states just let our nation’s Graces freely contract with willing Wills. But a significant number of states, including Oklahoma...
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Comments (34)
November 07, 2008
by Ron Paul Since the bailout bill passed, I have been frequently disturbed to hear “experts” wrongly blaming the free market for our recent economic problems and calling for more regulation. In fact, further regulation can only make things worse....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
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Comments (5)
November 06, 2008
by Micah Tillman One of the most troubling things about Tuesday’s election results is that they will lead to no conclusions. They will decide no arguments. Even the pundits who promoted McCain as the centrist who could save Republicans—in this...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:33 AM
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Comments (2)
November 05, 2008
by Carl Milsted, Jr. Years ago, I told my Republican friends that George Bush would destroy the Republican Party. Well, it finally happened. The GOP just received a well-deserved spanking at the polls, and we are looking at a new...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
11:19 AM
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Comments (6)
November 04, 2008
Markets could work right if prices were left alone by Fred E. Foldvary A subsidy lets people buy stuff below the price that would be set in a market. In a free market, prices tend to cover the costs of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:33 AM
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Comments (0)
November 03, 2008
by Paul Jacob Can you be kicked out of the government for serving sautéed shad roe? Prime Minister Samak Sundarave of Thailand has just been ousted by a Thai court for violating the constitution. His crime? Hosting TV cooking shows...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:43 AM
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Comments (0)
October 31, 2008
by Ron Paul With news this week that Congress is poised to consider a new stimulus package, I am forced to again ask a question that seems silly in Washington: How will we pay for this? While a few Members...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:04 AM
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Comments (2)
October 30, 2008
by Micah Tillman Obama wants “redistributive change” in order to effect “political and economic justice.” He wants society-wide tools for the sake of justice. For the sake of social justice. And who’s surprised? A major difference between conservatives and progressives...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
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Comments (0)
October 28, 2008
For a cyclical phenomenon, look past the catalyst by Fred E. Foldvary All national economies today are mixed economies, a combination of markets and governmental intervention. In a pure market economy, all activity is voluntary, with no restriction on peaceful...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
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Comments (0)
October 27, 2008
by Paul Jacob Restaurants in some towns are now being forced to stop using trans fats. According to the latest biochemistry, trans fats are bad for you. No doubt. Many foodstuffs are bad for you, can even kill you, at...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:09 AM
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Comments (4)
October 24, 2008
by Ron Paul In the midst of highly unpopular bailouts of Wall Street, many justifications have been given about why Washington feels the need to act. Some claim that capitalism and the free market are to blame, but we have...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:33 AM
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Comments (2)
October 23, 2008
by Micah Tillman Obama’s career in public service makes a lot of sense. It’s goal has always been singular and noble: changing Chicago’s South Side for the better. In 1988 Obama realized the fix would require Tim “The Tool Man”...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
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Comments (0)
October 21, 2008
How do you study spatial economics and miss land rent? by Fred E. Foldvary The 2008 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Paul Krugman, professor at Princeton University, for his analysis of...
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05:53 AM
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Comments (0)
October 20, 2008
by Paul Jacob How does the marketplace of ideas — and how do people who generally support free speech — react to the advancement of free-market ideas? Well, the new Milton Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago has sure...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:19 AM
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October 17, 2008
by Ron Paul It has been long understood that our federal government is going deeper into debt, consistently raising the debt ceiling and demonstrating no fiscal restraint. In recent years, debt ceiling increases have been placed in “must pass” legislation...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:51 AM
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Comments (1)
October 16, 2008
by Micah Tillman Why are we cynical about politics? I finally learned the answer in last night’s debate: Our politicians attack each other. It’s the “tit-for-tat” campaigns. Saith Obama. It’s not that we’ve given up on trying to find an...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:02 AM
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Comments (45)
October 14, 2008
The rules governing the basics are the problem by Fred E. Foldvary Three seemingly unrelated variables are in fact deeply connected. Gold has been the most widely used money, and in a pure free market, gold would most likely come...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:23 AM
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Comments (4)
October 13, 2008
by Paul Jacob One of the biggest post-9/11 policy blunders was the Sovietization of airport security. Some TSA screeners try to be civil even as they grab your almost-empty tube of toothpaste, as if there were a security risk there....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:15 AM
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Comments (1)
October 11, 2008
by Ron Paul It has not been a good week for the Republic. It took quite a bit of trampling of the Constitution, but the bailout bill passed, as I suspected it would. The bailout failed the first time it...
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06:45 AM
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Comments (32)
October 09, 2008
by Micah Tillman A classmate found our professor, Dr. Paul Streveler, looking pensive in his office a few years back. “Do you think Evil exists just to make Good look better?” the doctor asked. I’m starting to wonder whether the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:36 AM
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Comments (0)
October 07, 2008
Immigrants and tax-shift to the rescue! by Fred E. Foldvary The $700 billion mortgage bailout has been enacted, but it will take several weeks for it to be implemented, and meanwhile, unemployment is rising as many businesses cannot obtain the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:17 AM
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Comments (3)
October 06, 2008
by Paul Jacob When Congress began meddling in interstate commerce, using the most generous criteria to justify federal interference in private business and state powers, critics with common sense argued that the ultimate result would be absurdity. If Congress wasn’t...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:39 AM
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Comments (1)
October 03, 2008
by Ron Paul This time last week, the biggest bailout in the history of the world seemed to be a fait accompli. Last weekend, the Fed Chairman and the Secretary of the Treasury had harsh words of doom and gloom...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:17 AM
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Comments (4)
October 02, 2008
by Micah Tillman Everything you need to know about politics (and bailouts) you can learn from one scene in Babe, that talking-pig movie from the mid-90s. We join the story just as Farmer Hoggett is about to make a deadly...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:09 AM
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Comments (0)
October 01, 2008
by Paul Jacob Presidential candidate John McCain has proposed that a $300 million prize be offered to whomever develops a car battery to make electrically powered cars more feasible. It’s not a half-bad notion. Like the profits that serve as...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:06 AM
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Comments (0)
September 30, 2008
Money to the People! by Fred E. Foldvary As this articles is being written on Sunday morning, Sept. 28, 2008, Congress will soon pass the $700 billion bad-mortgage bailout requested by the executive branch. With a majority that includes both...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:20 PM
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Comments (1)
September 26, 2008
by Ron Paul On September 10, 2002 I asked 35 questions regarding war with Iraq. The war resolution passed on October 16, 2002. Now today, as some of my colleagues try to reestablish credentials regarding spending restraint, I want to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:52 AM
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Comments (0)
September 23, 2008
Landowners Indulged with Trillion-Dollar Subsidy by Fred E. Foldvary If there were ever any doubt that government is instituted by the landowners for the landowners and of the landowners, the trillion dollar subsidy being granted to landowners should confirm the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
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Comments (3)
September 22, 2008
by Paul Jacob Terrorism still vexes Europe, and seems unavoidable in Middle East hot spots. But since 9/11, thank goodness, there’s been no domestic terrorism in the United States. But what do we say when we see a story about...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:01 AM
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Comments (0)
September 18, 2008
by Micah Tillman As much as I find the recent government bailouts revolting, I can’t get as outraged as some. They’re not using my money. Any money that came from me stopped being mine on April 15th. So bail away,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:17 AM
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Comments (9)
September 16, 2008
Time to cut our losses and let business sink or swim? by Fred E. Foldvary The automobile industry was once the engine of the American economy. As the biggest or second-biggest purchase by many households, car manufacturing was not only...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:36 AM
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Comments (0)
September 15, 2008
by Paul Jacob Trichotillomania is a mental disorder, the compulsion to pull one’s hair out. I think I have it. At least, I find reasons to tear out my hair. Frayda Levin knows what I’m talking about. As chair of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:40 AM
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Comments (1)
September 12, 2008
by Ron Paul Last week I discussed how sound money contributes to peaceful relationships around the world. It is not gold, in and of itself that excites me, but the many benefits of sound money. Another benefit is financial security....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:40 AM
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Comments (0)
September 11, 2008
How to Avoid Budget Crises by Fred E. Foldvary The State of California is suffering from a budget crisis. The legislature and governor have not agreed on a budget for the new fiscal year that began on July 1. Without...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:03 AM
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Comments (0)
September 09, 2008
by Paul Jacob Years ago, I would actually listen to lectures by economists on how the electric grid might function better. Pretty much only one thing remains in my head, the conclusion: Regulatory agencies and government-run electrical companies tend to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:37 AM
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Comments (3)
September 08, 2008
by Carl Milsted This web site is called The Free Liberal, yet you will often see the word “libertarian” on its pages. What gives? Is “free liberal” just a euphemism for “libertarian?” In some ways, yes. For example, I just...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:58 AM
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Comments (11)
September 04, 2008
by Micah Tillman John McCain is on his deathbed as we speak. If he even makes it to Election Day, he surely won't last much beyond. And that means you're not really voting for McCain. Look closely at the ballot...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:21 AM
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Comments (9)
September 02, 2008
Too bad they don’t know enough to be humble by Fred E. Foldvary There is much talk about the experience, or lack of it, by the candidates for president and vice president. Senator Obama, Democratic Party candidate for president, has...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:26 AM
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Comments (2)
September 01, 2008
by Paul Jacob Subsidies for ethanol are the biggest reason why food prices are rising faster than gas prices. This is leading to a worldwide humanitarian crisis, with the poor being hit hardest. Think of that when you next pump...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:06 AM
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Comments (75)
August 29, 2008
by Ron Paul As the Olympics wind down, I am amazed at how things change every four years. Many Americans were glued to their televisions to watch the excitement from Beijing, and also heard announcers wax nostalgic with memories of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:05 AM
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Comments (0)
August 28, 2008
by Micah Tillman “Four more years of Bush” said the DNC performers again and again. Never mind that Bush is on every Republican’s “Most Loved” list, while McCain is on their “Most Loathed.” Never mind that McCain is the one...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:00 AM
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Comments (2)
August 27, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary In a previous article, I proposed an economics Olympics. Some elementary and middle schools have done this, but with factual questions, such as what money some country uses. But suppose there were an economics Olympics judging...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:13 AM
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Comments (1)
August 26, 2008
by Paul Jacob Give Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal credit for doing the right thing sooner rather than later. Jindal acted faster than, say, former Governor Gray Davis of California. In 2003, Davis tripled California’s car tax, provoking widespread anger. Finally,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:58 AM
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Comments (0)
August 25, 2008
By Carl Milsted, Jr. The Bob Barr campaign fills my mail boxes with increasingly strident messages, complete with artificial goals and forced analogies. “Help us get a gold medal in Olympic fundraising!” (I paraphrase.) Boring. And now they are “fighting...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:34 AM
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Comments (17)
August 22, 2008
by Ron Paul We've heard how the value of the dollar affects gas prices – and indeed the price of everything. I was pleased that my request for a hearing on such was granted by the Financial Services committee and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:36 AM
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Comments (0)
August 21, 2008
by Micah Tillman What price should you pay for your country's failures? Specifically, what price should you pay for the fact "that we still don't abide by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you do for the least of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:34 AM
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Comments (847)
August 19, 2008
Will T-bills become Risky? by Fred E. Foldvary The human tendency to procrastinate unpleasant things becomes toxic when corporate and government chiefs do it. For example, corporations and governments promised pension plans to their workers but did not fund them...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:54 AM
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Comments (3)
August 18, 2008
by Paul Jacob The blogger Alaskan Librarian has a list of things he’d like done by the next president. I share at least one of his wishes, “to see policy formulated in the open.” Specifically, he wants candidates to sign...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
10:03 AM
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Comments (741)
August 15, 2008
by Ron Paul Recently Congress passed the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act., also known as the Housing Bill. Its passage was lauded by many who are legitimately concerned about foreclosures and the housing market in our country's economy....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:42 AM
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Comments (412)
August 13, 2008
by Micah Tillman Can you imagine a journalist being as chummy with his subjects as Chris Collinsworth was with Deborah Phelps at the men's 200m freestyle? Surely you saw it. The joking. The holding. The celebrating. The tension between sports...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:26 AM
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Comments (4)
August 12, 2008
Land lures Russians by Fred E. Foldvary Once again we conquer lands, we’ll sing the same old song. Oh the Russian spirit just cannot go wrong. As we march through Georgia we are all a thousand strong Russian troops are...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:15 AM
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Comments (0)
August 11, 2008
by Paul Jacob Even in his second term as South Carolina’s governor, Mark Sanford continues to flout the political establishment’s typical way of doing things. A former congressmen who pledged to limit his tenure to three terms max, Sanford was...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:41 AM
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Comments (1047)
August 08, 2008
by Ron Paul One problem with politicians is that when problems they create come to a head, they typically feel this irresistible urge to DO something, rather than to UN-do something, or to simply back off to avoid exacerbating the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:03 AM
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Comments (2)
August 06, 2008
Correct for inflation for the real story by Fred E. Foldvary The U.S. federal government’s national income accounts reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis show an increase in GDP, the country’s output, of 1.9 percent per year in the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:01 AM
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Comments (1)
August 05, 2008
by Jane Orient, MD Senators Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) might be calling for “bipartisan” health care in a May 22 letter to the Wall Street Journal, along with lots of others in many forums. As if doubling...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:21 AM
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Comments (2)
August 04, 2008
by Paul Jacob Do you ever get tired of hearing certain words? This election, I’m already sick of “change.” And hey: I want change; demand it. But the only change I can believe in is change with some specifics attached....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:18 AM
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Comments (0)
August 02, 2008
by Ron Paul The dangers inherent in the foreign policy advocated by the neo-conservatives are well known. While many Americans have become increasingly aware of those dangers, far less attention has been focused on the dangers of neo-conservative economic policies....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:38 AM
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Comments (0)
July 31, 2008
by Micah Tillman 1. Silly People You can't call for an end to polarization with a straight face. Or if you can, there's something wrong with you. The very act of condemning polarization is polarizing. To attack polarization is to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:40 AM
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Comments (10)
July 29, 2008
The waxing and waning schools of economics by Fred E. Foldvary Mark Skousen, economist and financial analyst, has written a very good book on Vienna and Chicago: Friends or Foes; A Tale of Two Schools of Free-Market Economics. The comparison...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:13 AM
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Comments (965)
July 28, 2008
by Paul Jacob Could the most important thing one does for one’s community be to send a pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution to local politicians and police? Some officers in the Dallas Police Department are doing things against the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:14 AM
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Comments (0)
July 25, 2008
by Ron Paul The Latin term “fiat” roughly translates to “there shall be”. When we refer to fiat money, we are referring to money that exists because the government declares it into existence. It is not based on production or...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:39 AM
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Comments (0)
July 24, 2008
by Micah Tillman Hurricane season has begun. The Dark Knight is setting box office records. The messiah has departed our shores. And USA Today has just printed Michael Novak's "Reconciling Evil with Faith." Responding to James Wood's New Yorker piece,...
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06:49 AM
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Comments (10)
July 21, 2008
by Paul Jacob I received an announcement from Governor Sanford of South Carolina. The odd thing is that I could read the whole document verbatim and you couldn’t tell the governor’s thoughts from mine. I’m in complete agreement. With what?...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:10 AM
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Comments (1)
July 18, 2008
by Ron Paul What will it take to get our troops out of Iraq? The roughly 70 percent of Americans who are firmly against the war often ask this question. Those in power are reluctant to give conditions, but when...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:00 AM
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Comments (1)
July 16, 2008
by Micah Tillman If "your vote is your voice" then voters are dumb. What you do in the voting booth — if you're behaving — influences nothing. But influence is the point. So voting is irrational. Why vote, then? The...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:49 AM
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Comments (9)
July 15, 2008
By buying mortgages, the state subsidizes speculators by Fred E. Foldvary Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are US government-sponsored companies which buy mortgages from banks and other originators. They raise funds by selling bonds. The Fannie and Freddie bonds have...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:35 AM
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Comments (421)
July 14, 2008
by Paul Jacob We've got a mole in the U.S. Congress. Not a foreign agent trying to undermine the American way of life. We’ve got plenty of homegrown politicians doing that already. No, it’s a congressman who actually opposes porkbarrel...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:29 AM
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Comments (2)
July 11, 2008
by Ron Paul One reason people are unhappy with the way politics and governments operate is that people who run for office are known to “say one thing and do another.” Thus, we have the call for “change.” Candidates for...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:55 AM
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Comments (3)
July 07, 2008
by Paul Jacob Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev no longer reigns as king of Nepal. On May 28, the Nepalese Constituent Assembly abolished the monarchy. The members of the assembly told Gyanendra to clear out of his Katmandu palace before...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:57 AM
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Comments (1)
July 01, 2008
Why pay more at the pump? There are solutions by Fred E. Foldvary Saudi Arabia's King has accused speculators of driving up the price of oil to $140 per barrel. Saudi Arabia has increased output to dampen speculation, but as...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:21 AM
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Comments (1)
June 30, 2008
by Paul Jacob Subway, America’s leading fast-food sandwich franchise, is sponsoring a contest for kids. It’s an essay contest entitled “Every Sandwich Tells a Story.” This contest itself is something of a story. First, the contest explanation and rules contain...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:28 AM
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Comments (1)
June 26, 2008
by Micah Tillman Quoth Barr: "It is the duty of the federal government to secure our borders from criminals, terrorists and those seeking to take advantage of the American taxpayer." Responds Ponnuru: With the letter surrounding that sentence, Barr is...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:18 AM
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Comments (11)
June 24, 2008
The Truce and the Noose by Fred E. Foldvary The six-month truce between the Israeli government and the Hamas chiefs in Gaza offers opportunities which if not fulfilled could lead to greater dangers. There are two purposes of a truce....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:45 AM
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Comments (15)
June 23, 2008
by Paul Jacob Jared Gray is an 18-year-old high school student who works as a janitor for Southern Utah University. One day he found a bag of cash lying in the parking lot, obviously one of the school’s deposit bags....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:03 AM
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Comments (46)
June 20, 2008
by Ron Paul What is the importance of the war in Iraq relative to other current issues? This is a question I am often asked, especially as Americans continue to become increasingly aware that something is very wrong with the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:34 AM
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June 18, 2008
by Micah Tillman Apparently it’s 1849 all over again. Genderless marriage certificates just became available in California, and Lisa Neff’s AP article on the subject got titled, “Gay couples rush to get married in California” on Yahoo! News. “Rush,” eh?...
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07:01 AM
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June 17, 2008
Inflation Rising by Fred E. Foldvary What is inflation? There are two economic meanings of inflation. The first meaning is monetary inflation, having to do with the money supply. To understand that, we need to understand that the impact of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:03 AM
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Comments (2)
June 16, 2008
by Paul Jacob Just "being a professor" doesn't make you smarter than your students. Or more grounded in reality. Or common sense. Take Priya Venkatesan, a Dartmouth academic who teaches a class in something-or-other to do with science, postmodernism and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:20 AM
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Comments (2)
June 13, 2008
by Ron Paul Oil prices are on the minds of many Americans as gas hits $4 a gallon, and continues to surge. How high can prices go? How can we solve these problems? What, or who, is to blame? Part...
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05:56 AM
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June 12, 2008
by Micah Tillman Leadership is putting things to a vote. Jumping on the bandwagon. Doing what everyone else is. Right? After all the derision of Bush for his "cowboy diplomacy" and "unilateralism," what do people mean when they say that...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:18 AM
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Comments (0)
June 11, 2008
Opportunity to make money could be wide open by Fred E. Foldvary The unemployment rate in the USA jumped from 5 to 5.5 percent in May. This ten percent jump was the largest monthly increase since the 1980s. There was...
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05:51 AM
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June 09, 2008
By Paul Jacob Last November, Keith Sampson, a college student, was found guilty of “racial harassment.” He’d been caught reading a book while on break from a part-time job with the school. Uh-oh. The book is titled Notre Dame vs....
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07:23 AM
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Comments (2)
June 06, 2008
by Ron Paul Recently Congress sent the latest Farm Bill to the president. The bill features brand new federal programs, expansion of existing subsidies, more food stamps and more foreign food aid. This bill hits the taxpayer hard, while at...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:22 AM
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Comments (1)
June 05, 2008
by Micah Tillman As June 17th approaches, when California's first same-sex marriage licenses will become available, it's time to say the following: The argument is simple, the conclusion easy to reach. But Ronald George, Chief Justice of the California Supreme...
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Comments (4)
June 03, 2008
California Grants Privileges to Government Personae by Fred E. Foldvary In George Orwell’s classic tale Animal Farm, the slogan “all animals are equal” became amended to “but some animals are more equal than others.” The State of California has adopted...
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Comments (1)
June 02, 2008
by Paul Jacob “Condign.” I’d read the word before, and still had to look it up. I looked it up again a little while ago. I think I’ll remember it now. Some think of having to look up uncommon words...
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06:44 AM
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Comments (3)
May 27, 2008
A task made to order for insurance by Fred E. Foldvary Nature sometimes plays tricks on us, and a baby is born with genetic flaws. That person can require huge medical expenses the rest of his life. Who should pay...
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06:29 AM
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Comments (1)
May 26, 2008
by Paul Jacob Expensive coffee is my besetting sin. But the hugely successful Starbucks — which I’ve defended before — recently did something so oddly irksome that maybe I’ll get a handle on my occasional vice. Starbucks offers a debit-card-like...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:40 AM
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Comments (3)
May 23, 2008
by Micah Tillman Progressives are often confused with pacifists, and pacifists with passivists. But keeping those three ideologies distinct is essential for untangling the recent spat between Bush, Obama, and McCain over "negotiation" and "appeasement." "Passivism" I'll define as the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:01 AM
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Comments (1)
by Micah Tillman Progressives are often confused with pacifists, and pacifists with passivists. But keeping those three ideologies distinct is essential for untangling the recent spat between Bush, Obama, and McCain over "negotiation" and "appeasement." "Passivism" I'll define as the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:01 AM
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Comments (1)
May 22, 2008
by Ron Paul This week, as the American economy continued to suffer the effects of big government, the House attempted to pass two multibillion dollar "emergency" spending bills, one for continued spending on the war in Iraq , and one...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:23 AM
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Comments (0)
May 20, 2008
New York Fed Studies NYC Land Values by Fred E. Foldvary In its April/May 2008 publication "Current Issues in Economics and Finance: Second District Highlights," the Federal Reserve Bank of New York presents a study by Andrew Haughwout, James Orr,...
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Comments (2)
May 19, 2008
by Paul Jacob If he attends the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Beijing, President Bush will miss an opportunity . . . an opportunity to protest the Chinese government’s crackdown and jailing of dissidents in Tibet and elsewhere....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:47 AM
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May 16, 2008
by Ron Paul The House passed two bills attempting to rehabilitate the housing and mortgage market this week. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of criticism and blame for the bad decisions, and rightly so. Lenders and banks do...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:12 AM
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Comments (1)
May 15, 2008
by Micah Tillman On Monday, John McCain delivered a major talk on global warming. At a Danish wind-energy firm. In Portland, Oregon. Surely the irony of a South-Western Senator, who spends so much of his time on the Eastern Seaboard,...
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Comments (280)
May 13, 2008
Who makes up these rules anyway? by Fred E. Foldvary Sometimes governments act so ridiculous that they clarify the true role of the state. Government chiefs claim they want to reduce environmental damage and promote energy conservation, but in practice,...
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May 12, 2008
by Paul Jacob Banned! First alcohol prohibition, then other drugs. Now candy. Yes, candy is now banned on many school campuses. Why? Refined sugar is so bad for you it’s wicked. I’m sure you know many of the major bad...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:26 AM
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Comments (1)
May 09, 2008
by Ron Paul In the past few months, American workers, consumers, and businesses have experienced a sudden and dramatic rise in gasoline prices. In some parts of the country, gasoline costs as much as $4 per gallon. Some politicians claim...
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06:55 AM
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May 08, 2008
by Micah Tillman Your worldview answers four questions, the last of which is, "Why?" Your understanding of humanity -- and therefore of politics, religion, and science -- is shaped by where you locate the source of value, and what you...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:25 AM
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Comments (2)
May 06, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has announced the gross domestic product for the first quarter (the first three months) of 2008. GDP is $14.2 trillion, and the real (inflation adjusted) growth from the last quarter...
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May 05, 2008
by Paul Jacob Say George Washington were alive today and trying to immigrate to our country. Should we let him in with open arms? Or deny him a green card because he participated in the American Revolution? Have I gone...
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May 02, 2008
by Ron Paul K.K. Forss does not claim medical marijuana solves all his problems. His pain from a ruptured disc in his neck is debilitating. He is unable to go to work or to the First Baptist Church he used...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:51 AM
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May 01, 2008
by Micah Tillman Abuses of the first-person plural, as in the following, are far too common: [H]ave we asked the Japanese to forgive us? We have never as a country, the policymakers . . . . We have never apologized...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:07 AM
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Comments (20)
April 29, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary Sticks and stones can break one’s bones but … The government of Canada prohibits speech directing hatred against persons of a particular color, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation (the "Hate Propaganda" sections 318 and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:34 AM
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Comments (1)
April 28, 2008
by Paul Jacob We take the most wondrous marvels for granted. We’re annoyed when we have to reboot our computers, for example. And how come we can only do 25 things at once on this magical machine, instead of 35...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:32 AM
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Comments (0)
April 25, 2008
by Ron Paul Taxes were on the forefront of many Americans’ minds this week as they scrambled to meet the April 15th deadline to file their returns. Tax policy in this country hurts taxpayers twice – once when they pay...
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Comments (103)
April 23, 2008
by Micah Tillman The onslaught Obama endured on ABC over patriotism was not so much an attack by Gibson and Stephanopoulos as preparation for a battle that will always be Conservatives’ to lose. Progressives need to be prepared, but simply...
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Comments (5)
April 22, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary The High Cost of Food Land for growing food has always competed with land used to grow plants with other uses. Farmers who grow cotton could instead grow grains or fruits. Also, forest land has the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
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April 21, 2008
by Paul Jacob Hawaii was the last state to join the union. But it was first in something important. Way back, long before statehood, when a guy named King Kamehameha was in charge, Hawaii established equal rights without regard to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:15 AM
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Comments (161)
April 18, 2008
by Ron Paul There has been a lot of talk in the news recently about the Federal Reserve and the actions it has taken over the past few months. Many media pundits have been bending over backwards to praise the...
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April 17, 2008
by Chuck Muth With this year’s national day of anguish – otherwise known as Tax Day – upon us, this seems like an appropriate time to follow-up on a column I wrote a couple weeks ago about FedEx and the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:16 AM
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April 16, 2008
by Micah Tillman Recently, Joe Klein has given us yet another instance of a mysterious phenomenon: people feel the need to defend Obama et al. on the issue of patriotism. If a Conservative called a Progressive a “bigot” or a...
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05:41 AM
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April 15, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary Do lenders need cops or less temptation? The financial crisis is creating calls to expand the regulation of the financial industry. The Federal Reserve system, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Departments of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
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April 14, 2008
by Paul Jacob California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger no longer likes term limits. He explained why in an interview with the LA Times. Says Arnold: “[O]riginally I felt very strongly that it was the greatest thing ever done. Because I despised...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:00 AM
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Comments (94)
April 11, 2008
by Ron Paul Last month, the House amended the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expand the government’s ability to monitor our private communications. This measure, if it becomes law, will result in more warrantless government surveillance of innocent...
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06:38 AM
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Comments (2)
April 08, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary Who benefits from bailouts? When we have an election year coinciding with a real estate crash, we are sure to see Congress and state governments give billions of dollars to landowners who bought near the peak...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:30 AM
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April 07, 2008
by Paul Jacob Do we need another czar? Ask Senator John McCain. In a year he could be president and appointing “czars.” Scary thought. His McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance law squelched too many freedoms for me to rush into rah-rah mode....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:36 AM
April 04, 2008
by Chuck Muth I live in Nevada, so gambling isn’t exactly a new concept to me. And were I a betting man, I’d bet that former Republican Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia jumps into the presidential race this week as...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:59 AM
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by Chuck Muth I live in Nevada, so gambling isn’t exactly a new concept to me. And were I a betting man, I’d bet that former Republican Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia jumps into the presidential race this week as...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:59 AM
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Comments (0)
April 03, 2008
by Micah Tillman Obama’s Chicago history — Wright, Rezko, Ayers — is starting to make him look just like every other Joe “I’ll Do It If It Gets Me Power” Politician. I shouldn’t be surprised: Might may not make right,...
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Comments (3)
April 02, 2008
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Many liberals are up in arms these days over the USA PATRIOT Act and other recent assaults on our civil liberties. Hurray! Alas, many of these same liberals are chomping at the bit to implement...
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06:53 AM
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Comments (0)
April 01, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary If they can find new sin, can they find new sense? The Vatican has revised the traditional Catholic “Seven Deadly Sins” with new ones, including “being obscenely wealthy.” Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:33 AM
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Comments (1)
March 31, 2008
by Paul Jacob Sometimes it takes money to do things. Say, to collect signatures for a petition. If you want folks to be hitting the sidewalks all day inviting support for a ballot question, you might want to pay them...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:36 AM
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March 28, 2008
by Ron Paul Five years ago last week, the US military's "shock and awe" campaign lit up the Baghdad sky. Five years later, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and nearly four thousand Americans dead, we should pause and reflect...
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Comments (3)
March 26, 2008
[Ed. Note: Making political change is much debated, yet political action might be characterized as similar to the Canadian ice game of curling, which combines aspects of bowling, bocce and shuffleboard. The curling stone – a kind of oversized hockey...
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Comments (13)
March 25, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary Taxes on Movable Capital are Stupid and Outdated The German government has inflicted a fiscal invasion of the Principality of Liechtenstein, a tiny independent country between Switzerland and Austria. Germans along with other nationals have been...
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March 24, 2008
by Paul Jacob Even the obvious needs defenders. It is obvious that private property rights are vitally important. It is obvious that markets in property encourage development where development is desired. It is just as obvious that a lot of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:33 AM
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March 21, 2008
by Ron Paul House Democrats recently adopted a budget with massive tax hikes, many of which are directed at those Americans who can least afford them. By allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, this budget will raise...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:26 AM
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Comments (3)
March 18, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary Parents must pay school taxes but may not teach their kids On February 28, 2008, California judges of the 2nd District Court of Appeals confirmed the power of the State of California to impose a government...
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05:50 AM
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Comments (2)
March 17, 2008
by Paul Jacob Are America’s politicians resigned to endless budget deficits and rising debt? Well, Comptroller General David M. Walker isn’t. As the designated gadfly of the U.S. government’s flaky finances, he’s done a bang-up job. Or, at least, that’s...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:38 AM
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Comments (1)
March 14, 2008
by Ron Paul Congress is poised to pass the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) authorizing up to $50 million in unconstitutional foreign aid. The bill passed out of the Foreign Affairs Committee with a bipartisan agreement to nearly...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:17 AM
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Comments (2)
March 13, 2008
by Paul Gessing I was at my local Catholic church one Sunday recently and had the opportunity to listen to a homily from a priest that made me question both my own values and the Church’s. The homily in question...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:24 AM
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Comments (4)
March 12, 2008
The smaller the district, the better known the candidate by Fred E. Foldvary Here’s another fine mess the Democrat chiefs have gotten the voters into. The demagods of Michigan and Florida decided to have more punch for their votes, and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:24 AM
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Comments (1)
March 11, 2008
by Paul Jacob It’s that Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Lately I’ve been getting lots of outlandish parodies from my huge research staff, which calls itself “the Internet.” Hey, stop sending me all these goofy parodies, “Internet.”...
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06:45 AM
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Comments (0)
March 10, 2008
by Jeremy Lott When they look at the choices in this year's presidential elections, many libertarians and old-school conservatives are understandably irate. Both Democrats promise to bring the troops home from Iraq -- eventually -- but the real issue at...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:15 AM
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Comments (3)
March 07, 2008
by Ron Paul It is becoming harder and harder for Washington and the mainstream media to ignore the ripple effect the collapse of the housing bubble is having on the economy. Inflation is up, cost of food is up, oil...
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06:25 AM
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Comments (2)
March 06, 2008
by Micah Tillman “[F]or all the millions of votes Mrs. Clinton has now won, simple math is still her enemy,” writes Patrick Healey for the NYTimes. And since math is reality (according to Newton’s descendants) we’d expect things to feel...
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05:13 AM
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Comments (0)
March 05, 2008
by Nathan Einbinder Politicians in Washington have long ignored the links between free trade agreements and their negative impacts on both social welfare and the environment. Regardless of his political motives, Barack Obama’s recent negative statements about the North American...
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Comments (1)
March 04, 2008
We bid farewell to a thinker little known for his best thinking by Fred E. Foldvary William F. Buckley was a leading American conservative intellectual for half a decade. He died on Feb. 27, 2008 at the age of 82....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:55 AM
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Comments (0)
March 03, 2008
by Paul Jacob I misspoke. I shouldn’t have said property owners suffer double jeopardy from eminent domain abuse, as I argued in a recent episode of Common Sense. More like triple. Even quadruple. Until recently in New York State, for...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:38 AM
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Comments (1)
February 29, 2008
by Ron Paul One major concern I discussed a few weeks ago regarding the Trans Texas Corridor is where the land will come from. Another concern is where the money will come from. Official government websites for the TTC assure...
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06:25 AM
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February 28, 2008
by Micah Tillman Introduction During the Ohio debate, Hillary Clinton used the word “value” three times. And each time she did so incorrectly. She’s not alone, however. The mistakes she makes in value theory have become commonplace in America. But...
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07:13 AM
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Comments (10)
February 26, 2008
Got moths? Got campaign contributions? Can’t breathe easy? by Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is planning to spray chemicals in the San Francisco Bay Area in an attempt to eliminate Epiphyas postvittana,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:26 AM
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Comments (2)
February 25, 2008
by Paul Jacob Good news for political bloggers and other practitioners of non-mainstream media. The Freedom of Information Act has been expanded. Apparently, it means that uncredentialed folks will have an easier time learning what the dadblasted government has been...
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06:07 AM
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Comments (0)
February 22, 2008
by Ron Paul For decades we have welcomed new immigrants to our American "melting pot". We respect those who come here peacefully to pursue their American Dream. But Americans have noticed lately that modern problems associated with illegal immigration are...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:25 AM
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Comments (3)
February 20, 2008
Paying rent promotes peace by Fred E. Foldvary A Palestinian state is inevitable, and it is also impossible for it to exist without an association with Israel. Thus a confederation of Israel and Palestine is logical and unavoidable. However, as...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
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Comments (4)
February 19, 2008
by Paul Jacob What if government could throw you in jail for recording what it does in public? That may not be what America is coming to. It does seem to be what Newton, Massachusetts, is coming to. A Newton...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:15 AM
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February 15, 2008
by Ron Paul As a United States Congressman, I take my oath to uphold all of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights very seriously. Unfortunately, too many in Washington DC believe they can pick-and-choose which provisions of the constitution...
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06:43 AM
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Comments (14)
February 14, 2008
by Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Last fall I did a three-part series on the economics of the War on Drugs. I showed how completely outlawing hard drugs was a doomed project, but the government could beneficially prosecute hard drug abusers,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:17 AM
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Comments (4)
February 13, 2008
by Micah Tillman Imagine that you want universal health insurance, and you’ve decided the government should be the one to give it to us. You could have gone with charity organizations or for-profit businesses, but you didn’t. You are, in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:53 AM
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Comments (8)
February 12, 2008
What might sound good really doesn’t work by Fred E. Foldvary Welfare-state liberals, fiscally aggressive progressives, and taxaholic Democrats seek higher taxes on the rich and on big corporations. They think that the rich have more money than they need,...
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06:58 AM
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Comments (1)
February 11, 2008
by Paul Jacob "The government is trying to shut our ears and eyes." That's not me saying that. I'm quoting one Thant Zin, a civil servant in Burma. This gentleman told the Associated Press that Burma's "military regime does not...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:59 AM
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Comments (0)
February 08, 2008
by Ron Paul The Constitution guarantees Americans the right to be secure against all unreasonable seizures. My home state of Texas is unfortunately planning on some very unreasonable seizures of land with the monstrous Trans Texas Corridor highway project. The...
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05:59 AM
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Comments (4)
February 06, 2008
by Micah Tillman “[T]hose who could afford it but don't [purchase] health insurance . . . [get] sick, go to an emergency room, [and] all of us wind up paying for their health care.” So said Wolf Blitzer, reporting a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:15 AM
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Comments (1)
February 05, 2008
Bubble of Offices and Shops Follows Housing by Fred E. Foldvary US economic growth slowed almost to zero in the last quarter of 2007, consistent with a coming recession. Government’s data on current national income accounts or GDP (gross domestic...
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05:56 AM
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Comments (1)
February 04, 2008
by Paul Jacob The Democrats took over Congress, pledging to curb the practice of earmarks. They didn’t quite succeed. The omnibus spending bill they produced in December was filled with spending projects of a less-than-national character, most of which no...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:37 AM
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Comments (2)
February 01, 2008
by Ron Paul This past week in Washington there has been much talk about the economy. It seems by their actions the leadership and the Fed is finally willing to admit we have a problem, and we need to do...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:59 AM
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Comments (7)
January 31, 2008
by Micah Tillman A post by The Free Liberal’s Paul Gessing caught my attention a little while back. In it he was surprised to find himself “Agreeing With Jonah Goldberg.” Goldberg had written a piece on the self-rebranding of liberals...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:31 AM
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Comments (9)
January 30, 2008
Going au naturel raises the powerful’s hackles by Fred E. Foldvary [Ed. Note: Warning! This editorial is for sophisticated audiences only! Those easily offended should stop reading right now.] The federal government has been waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:21 AM
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Comments (0)
January 29, 2008
by Chuck Muth Hate is a pretty strong word. But not strong enough to express how I feel about the TSA - the Transportation Security Administration or Thousands Standing Around, depending on your point of view - which runs those...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:25 AM
January 28, 2008
by Paul Jacob Overkill. That’s becoming the watchword of modern policework. Take the case of Laura Elkins and John Robbins’s home-repair brouhaha four years ago. The couple had begun work on repairing their roof, raising it a bit in the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:56 AM
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Comments (1)
January 25, 2008
by Ron Paul It has been over 6 years since the atrocities of September 11 were committed and there are still some very basic measures that need to be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice and make America safer....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:20 AM
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Comments (4)
January 23, 2008
by Micah Tillman As the primaries gather steam I’ve found myself paying a disturbing amount of attention to other people’s opinions. If a candidate has a “surge in the polls,” he gets almost as much press as if he had...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:53 AM
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Comments (1)
January 22, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary The 18-year real estate cycle continues to march on right on schedule. There has been a boom-bust real estate cycle since the early 1800s, with a period of about 18 years. Some doubters point to the...
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07:06 AM
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Comments (0)
January 21, 2008
by Paul Jacob Even repressive regimes can have laws granting citizens certain political rights. What matters is the extent to which citizens are actually allowed to use those rights — you know, in real life. Michigan taxpayers are trying to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:39 AM
January 18, 2008
by Ron Paul Congress is re-convening this coming week and I would like to take this opportunity to give my legislative forecast for the coming year. Here are a few things we can expect to see from Washington . First...
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06:55 AM
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Comments (1)
January 17, 2008
by Paul Jacob I don’t like torture. Never have; never will. Sure, I know some expert interrogators argue that they can save lives by extracting information through torture. But other such experts — and in greater number — contend that...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:38 AM
January 15, 2008
Candidates Seek Small Change by Fred E. Foldvary A parrot could be a presidential candidate if one taught it to screech “change.” It would cry “change, change, change!” all day, and that would amount to the substance of most of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:08 AM
January 14, 2008
by Paul Jacob Complain, complain, complain. It’s gotten so bad that a billionaire, Warren Buffett, bemoans that he doesn’t pay enough in taxes. And former President Clinton, after rewriting his history on Iraq, complains, “I still resent that I was...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:07 AM
January 11, 2008
by Ron Paul One Christmas tradition Congress could do without is the broken process of passing the annual Omnibus Spending Bill, which we recently did right before the holiday recess. Every December Congress fights and argues over spending and never...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:15 AM
January 10, 2008
“Tear Down This Stonewall” by Kevin D. Rollins and Robert Capozzi Mr. Rockwell, Sometimes, issues come down to a very simple question. Now is such a time. Mr. Rockwell, did you or did you not ghostwrite for Dr. Ron Paul...
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10:22 AM
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Comments (26)
by Chuck Muth How many congressmen does it take to change a light bulb? 400. That’s how many members of Congress recently voted for a bill to force Americans to change the 50-cent incandescent light bulbs they’re currently using and...
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06:58 AM
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Comments (0)
January 09, 2008
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Being a small government type, I end up reading lots of rhetoric about George Bush not being a true conservative, that he doesn’t fit in the same mold as Goldwater or Reagan. Some even go...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:53 AM
January 08, 2008
After the tables have turned by Fred E. Foldvary [Approximately to the tune of Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone] Once upon a time you were a man who bought a lot of land! Speculators like you were buying real...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:41 AM
January 07, 2008
by Ryan Young There is some conspicuous empty space in the 2008 campaign, and this time not all of it is between the candidates’ ears. This radical departure happened last Thursday during CNN’s Iowa caucus coverage. Pie charts showed each...
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05:02 PM
by Paul Jacob Dog bites man — not news. Man bites dog — news. On this principle, NBC News aired a special segment, a while back, featuring billionaire Warren Buffett saying rich guys like him should be taxed more. What...
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05:43 AM
January 04, 2008
By Micah Tillman If you don’t have “Faith” in your website’s list of “Issues,” you don’t win. That’s really all the explanation you need for what happened on Thursday night. Romney’s inclusion of “American Culture & Values” in his list...
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11:12 AM
by Ron Paul Last week I highlighted the irony of sending nearly $1 billion overseas in military earmarks as we close down bases here at home to save money. Our government's flawed foreign policy troubles me this week especially. Benazir...
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05:15 AM
January 03, 2008
by Paul J. Gessing I watched the movie Charlie Wilson’s War over the New Year’s Holiday. If you haven’t already seen it – and even if you are not a politics junkie – the movie is entertaining and well-worth watching....
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06:15 AM
January 02, 2008
by Micah Tillman An acquaintance recently told me her British countrymen find the American concentration on candidates’ religion shocking. Why is it appropriate to make Romney’s or Huckabee’s or Obama’s faith an issue? I wanted to respond, “Come talk to...
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07:12 AM
January 01, 2008
by Fred E. Foldvary The political pendulum in the United States swung towards conservativism starting in the late 1970s, but with the election of 2006, the political mood is now swinging back to liberalism. The elections in 2008 will accelerate...
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07:23 AM
December 31, 2007
by Paul Jacob What’s the compromise between spending $14 billion and $15 billion? In Washington, that’s $23 billion.The recent Water Resources Development bill was originally approved by the Senate at $14 billion, and by the House for a billion dollars...
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04:38 AM
December 28, 2007
by Ron Paul As the year draws to a close, the battle over spending in Washington is heating up. The Democrats want to expand government healthcare, while the President has vetoed the second attempt to expand SCHIP. The latest version...
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07:59 AM
December 27, 2007
by Chuck Muth With the limited-government philosophy in mind, people coming across libertarianism for the first time often ask what the difference is between the two. The cynical answer, especially when you look at the last few years of GOP...
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05:34 AM
December 25, 2007
Ron Paul's Free Competition in Currency Act by Fred E. Foldvary I previously wrote about the raid and seizure of the property of Liberty Dollar and its customers by the FBI on November 14, 2007. FBI agents took two tons...
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06:30 AM
December 24, 2007
by Paul Jacob I’m a child of the ’60s. I had long hair and still have an album with Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner on electric guitar. Boy, I love that music. But even so, I’m just not...
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07:32 AM
December 21, 2007
by Ron Paul As the year draws to a close, the battle over spending in Washington is heating up. The Democrats want to expand government healthcare, while the President has vetoed the second attempt to expand SCHIP. The latest version...
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06:20 AM
December 19, 2007
By Chuck Muth Most people learn from their mistakes. But Republicans in the United States Senate aren’t most people. By November 2006, conservative voters had had enough of Republicans in Congress. The GOP majority was spending money faster than Democrats...
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07:02 AM
December 18, 2007
How Ron Paul could Win the Presidency in 2008 by Fred E. Foldvary Ron Paul, member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas, could win the Republican primary election for president and then the general election in 2008 if...
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06:58 AM
December 17, 2007
by Paul Jacob On the Ides of October, the first baby boomer applied for Social Security retirement. A Maryland teacher, born a second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946, will become eligible to receive early retirement benefits next New Year’s...
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05:44 AM
December 14, 2007
by Ron Paul The latest National Intelligence Estimate has been greeted by a mixture of relief and alarm. As I have been saying all along, Iran indeed poses no quantifiable imminent nuclear threat to us or her neighbors. It is...
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06:20 AM
December 13, 2007
By Chuck Muth If only we could live on the hot air and posturing of our elected officials. That would eliminate our reliance on food and, with luck, our need for prescription drugs as well. But, alas, Americans are standard-issue...
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05:17 AM
December 12, 2007
By Michael Bindner Is government engineering constitutional? Let’s review the bidding, shall we? When the constitution was written, it overtly represented the propertied interest and preserved both slavery and the suppression of civil liberties at the state level, particularly in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:21 AM
December 11, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary As is typical with government, the U.S. federal government chiefs want to put band-aids on the crumbling real estate market. Governments do nothing to prevent economic turmoil, and then when it happens, they magnanimously treat a...
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07:01 AM
December 10, 2007
by Paul Jacob Is there something wrong with the job of flipping burgers? Pundits sometimes belittle certain kinds of job growth. For example, they say that all the good jobs, like high-paying manufacturing jobs, are fading away. And eventually we'll...
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06:43 AM
December 07, 2007
by Ron Paul Illegal immigration is on the forefront of many Americans’ minds lately and with good reason. The Center for Immigration Studies has recently reported that our immigrant population is now 37 million, up from 27 million in 1997....
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06:04 AM
December 06, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary In economics, the waste of resources caused by a tax has two names. One is the "deadweight loss," a loss to the economy with no offsetting gain. The other name is the "excess burden," since the...
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05:45 AM
December 05, 2007
by Donny Ferguson Fox News, CNN, Court TV and the gang will soon descend on Las Vegas as tabloid mainstay O.J. Simpson goes on trial facing charges of armed robbery and kidnapping allegedly committed with accomplices so shady the prosecution...
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05:23 AM
December 04, 2007
by Michael Bindner By now, everyone knows the standard objections to the Fair Tax. The Bush Tax Reform Commission dealt with most of them, from the fact that the numbers don't add up if you remove government sending to the...
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04:38 AM
December 03, 2007
by Paul Jacob My car just died. It needs a new motor. Unfortunately, that costs more than the car is worth. But I don't really even care. You see, as bad news goes, that's nothing. I'm much more focused on...
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04:33 AM
November 30, 2007
by Ron Paul This past week Americans traveled approximately 2 billion miles to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with family and loved ones. While you cannot put a price on time with family, Americans sure felt the pain of higher fuel...
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02:13 AM
November 29, 2007
by Carl S. Milsted, Jr. The Ron Paul phenomenon has caught the mainstream media by surprise. A fringe candidate with some very extreme views, hostility from the Republican leadership, and tiny numbers in polls of "likely Republican voters" has...
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04:36 AM
November 28, 2007
by Chuck Muth I remember fondly a bumper sticker from a few years ago which read, “The Constitution is the Contract with America .” And as we approach this year’s Bill of Rights Day, there are actually some hopeful signs...
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04:30 AM
by Michael Bindner Why Compromise? Simply put, the controversy over this issue is tearing at the fabric of civil society in this nation. Unless common ground is sought, this is not going to change. This issue, to a large extent,...
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04:22 AM
November 27, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Freddie Mac, formally the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, is a government sponsored mortgage company chartered by Congress in 1970. It was hit by a $2 billion quarterly loss in the fall of 2007. Though a...
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04:59 AM
November 26, 2007
by Paul Jacob Michigan sure has problems. Big companies are leaving the state. Unemployment is up, foreclosures and bankruptcies increasing. So, what to do? Well, the governor and many in the legislature pushed for huge tax increases. But a rising...
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05:54 AM
November 21, 2007
by Michael Goodspeed "There is no anti-depressant that will cure a depression that's spiritually based, for the malaise doesn't originate from brain dysfunction, but from an accurate response to the desecration of life." --Dr. David R. Hawkins, Power Vs. Force...
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09:04 AM
November 20, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary On November 14, 2007, the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Secret Service raided the premises of Liberty Dollar office in Evansville, Indiana. Liberty Dollar stated that the agents confiscated the gold, silver, and...
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04:46 AM
November 19, 2007
by Paul Jacob Joan Orie Melvin is a Superior Court justice in Pennsylvania. She recently returned to state coffers $14,402.55. It is good to see her return the money. Why? Sometime back, the legislature had given themselves and the judiciary...
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06:32 AM
November 16, 2007
by Ron Paul In the name of clamping down on "terrorist uprisings" in Pakistan, General Musharraf has declared a state of emergency and imposed martial law. The true motivations behind this action however, are astonishingly transparent, as the reports come...
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04:55 AM
November 15, 2007
by Paul Jacob I like millionaires as much as the next person, maybe more. And I also believe in equal rights. But as I see it, no one really has a “right” to our tax dollars, least of all the...
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05:47 AM
November 13, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The word “pandemonium” was coined by the poet John Milton as the name of the capital of hell in Paradise Lost. It means disorder, a place of chaos, uproar, and turmoil. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan...
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05:01 AM
November 12, 2007
by Paul Jacob October 3, 2007 Social Security’s long-term financial insolvency haunts us. But our politicians are even more spooked by the solutions. “When I’m president,” Hillary Clinton told the American Association of Retired Persons, “privatization is off the table.”...
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03:59 AM
November 09, 2007
by Ron Paul Representative Charles Rangel’s recently announced plan to address the impending Alternative Minimum Tax’s application to middle-class Americans demonstrates limited economic understanding. The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) began in the late 1960's because 155 wealthy taxpayers had become...
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06:56 AM
by Ron Paul Representative Charles Rangel’s recently announced plan to address the impending Alternative Minimum Tax’s application to middle-class Americans demonstrates limited economic understanding. The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) began in the late 1960's because 155 wealthy taxpayers had become...
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06:56 AM
November 08, 2007
by Paul Jacob Politics is a contact sport. That’s not news to Tim Eyman or Mike and Jack Fagan, who run Voters Want More Choices, the Washington State group behind the Taxpayer Protection Initiative, known as I-960 on this November’s...
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05:54 AM
November 07, 2007
By Carl Milsted, Jr. Legalizers claim that drug use – even hard drug use – is a victimless crime; unless a user commits some other crime, such as robbery or violence, the only person harmed by the drugs is the...
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05:32 AM
November 06, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel has introduced a big reform of the personal income tax. This begins a debate on tax reform which will continue until the end of the...
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06:52 AM
November 05, 2007
by Paul Jacob Congress passes many bills without reading them. Some are prepared so close to the vote that not even their sponsors really know what’s in them. That’s nothing. Now Congress can push through legislation no one reads even...
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05:05 AM
November 02, 2007
by Ron Paul Since Raul Castro seems to be transitioning to a more permanent position of power, the administration has begun talking about Cuba policy again. One would think we would be able to survey the results of the last...
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08:19 AM
November 01, 2007
by Paul Jacob One newspaper calls Leon Drolet, head of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, “a bully.” State Rep. Ed Gaffney calls him a “brown-shirted, knuckle-dragging thug.” The Detroit Free Press calls him “One of the most unpopular figures in Lansing,”...
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05:37 AM
October 30, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The chiefs of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, evidently decided they did not want to be confronted with reporters asking embarrassing questions about their handling of the disastrous fire in southern California. Having been severely...
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08:29 AM
October 29, 2007
by Paul Jacob Why would taxpayers send money to the federal government that was ultimately intended to come back to their state or local governments? That's a recipe for losing a big chunk of our education dollars to those sticky-fingered...
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05:06 AM
October 26, 2007
by Ron Paul A few months back, I wrote back-to-back weekly messages regarding globalism and isolationism. In writing those columns, I focused on the fact that our nation’s interventionist foreign policy was precisely what was isolating us from other countries....
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06:06 AM
October 25, 2007
by Paul Jacob Why do they do it? These people who battle for sanity in the schools, who take on city hall, who recruit people to run for office, who challenge laws in court, who launch voter initiatives for reform....
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05:09 AM
October 23, 2007
Design Mechanisms for Democracy, Prosperity, and Liberty by Fred E. Foldvary The 2007 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was won by Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin, and Roger B. Myerson, all three American economists,...
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06:25 AM
October 22, 2007
by Paul Jacob Is there any way to word it? I'm thinking of a constitutional amendment, something citizens in initiative states could vote for that would curtail an absolutely insane practice. I refer to unfunded pension and health care benefits....
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05:22 AM
October 19, 2007
by Paul Jacob Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has taken full control over his city's long suffering public schools. But he sends his own twin girls to a private school. Does that make him a hypocrite? A bad mayor? Or,...
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06:31 AM
October 18, 2007
by Ron Paul This past week, Congress had an opportunity to permanently repeal the death tax by amending the Tax Collection Responsibility Act of 2007 to include language that ends the estate tax forever. This would have been a good...
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04:28 AM
October 16, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for promoting awareness of global warming, especially with his film An Inconvenient Truth. To reduce emissions, Al Gore proposes a tax shift, replacing the payroll Social Security tax...
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04:08 AM
October 15, 2007
by Paul Jacob The Internet provides a haven from government censorship. But governments often dislike this, especially those in countries with no tradition of free speech. These governments want their societies to have the benefits of cyber access, however. They...
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07:05 AM
October 12, 2007
by Ron Paul With our country's finances stretched thin, our credit limit fast approaching, and our currency inflated to the breaking point, there is no indication yet of any urgency on the part of Congress to rein in spending. The...
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06:42 AM
October 11, 2007
By Carl Milsted, Jr. Last month I made the point that merely going after drug dealers is largely a waste of effort. If we really want to reduce drug use, we should go after users. Of course, we don’t have...
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06:44 AM
October 10, 2007
by Paul Gessing Let’s be clear here. I opposed the Iraq War from the very beginning and, if it were my decision, I’d bring the troops home right away. That said, I think the ongoing controversy over the presence of...
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05:36 AM
October 09, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary From 1925 to 1963 there used to be signs along American country roads advertising " Burma shave." The Burma-Vita company sold a shaving cream, which it advertised with a series of highway billboard signs where a...
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05:42 AM
October 08, 2007
by Paul Jacob Shocker: Many Oregon politicians don't think Oregon citizens know what they're doing. These politicians are pushing a new ballot measure to undo a property rights measure passed by voters not once but twice. The disputed initiative is...
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07:00 AM
October 05, 2007
by Ron Paul This week Congress is again grasping for more control over the health of American children with the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Parents who think federally subsidized health care might be a good...
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05:57 AM
October 03, 2007
by Bede Clarke Citizen education, or lack of it, is the prime vested interest of rulers. No ruler was ever disinterested in the content of citizen education. Think of slave holders to get a more absolute sense of it. How...
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06:48 AM
October 02, 2007
Indigenous Rights? Anglo Conquerors Say No by Fred E. Foldvary On Sept. 13, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly approved a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The protection of these rights depends on the governments of the...
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05:47 AM
October 01, 2007
by Paul Jacob Why did the Ukrainian Canadian cross the border into the U.S.? A decade or more ago, a young teenage Ukrainian visited Minnesota under a charity program. He had a bad heart, and needed help. An American family...
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07:42 AM
September 27, 2007
by Ron Paul After the current turmoil in the markets, I was hoping that new Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would see the big picture and act judiciously. Instead he signaled, with an aggressive rate cut, that we can expect...
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06:23 AM
September 25, 2007
[Ed. Note: While TFL has a letter section, we received the following comment on the essay The League of Free Nations: A South Park Solution to the UN Dilemma by Gary Jason that merits posting as a feature.] I take...
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05:51 AM
by Fred E. Foldvary In an ideal world, one would be able to copyright writing or music that one creates, and the copyright would expire with the death of the author. One would be able to sue for copyright violation...
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05:48 AM
September 24, 2007
by Paul Jacob Politicians and bureaucrats have power and are often careless about how they use it. Respect for the rights of innocent people? Not always a priority. Not even in New Orleans, where so many are struggling to pick...
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06:59 AM
September 21, 2007
by Ron Paul Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Indeed some of the most malignant growth of our government has been nurtured under a cover of darkness. Literally, in the dark hours of the...
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06:18 AM
September 19, 2007
by Gary Jason I take it as obvious, as do millions of my fellow classical liberals, that the UN is a fatally flawed organization. (By “classical liberals” I mean those who advocate free markets and open democracies, which includes all...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:24 AM
September 18, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The Wall Street Journal on September 7, 2007, reported the former chairman of the Federal Reserve System as saying, "The human race has never found a way to confront bubbles." He stated this in a speech...
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07:39 AM
September 17, 2007
by Paul Jacob The headline in the British newspaper The Telegraph overstated it: "UK cancer survival rate lowest in Europe." Four paragraphs down we learn, instead, that "In total, 52.7pc of women survived for five years after being diagnosed between...
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07:23 AM
September 14, 2007
by Ron Paul Another NAFTA nail is about to be hammered into the coffin Washington is building for the US economy. Within the next few days our borders will be opened to the Mexican trucking industry in an unprecedented way....
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06:40 AM
September 13, 2007
by Micah Tillman Our political views are hardwired but have nothing to do with our genes. This is the paradoxical message the news media has given us over the last few days. Brain scans show different neural activity in liberals...
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07:27 AM
September 12, 2007
by Carl Milsted, Jr. Last month I announced that I was switching over to the Republican Party in order to support Ron Paul. I recommended that other peace and freedom lovers do likewise, that we could in theory create a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:41 AM
September 11, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Public finance and economics textbooks tell us that markets fail to provide adequate public goods such as security, which is why governments provide it. Yet if we look at Iraq in 2007, its government has failed...
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05:08 AM
September 10, 2007
by Paul Jacob Some people you can really count on. Some you can't count on at all. Both statements pretty much sum up Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. As in "you can count on not being able to count on him."...
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08:37 AM
September 06, 2007
by Ron Paul Faced with dwindling support of the Iraq War, the warhawks are redoubling their efforts. They imply we are in Iraq attacking those who attacked us, and yet this is not the case. As we know, Saddam Hussein,...
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07:24 AM
September 05, 2007
By Carl Milsted, Jr. I have a grim announcement to make. Cue up the ominous music. I suggest “Imperial March” from The Empire Strikes Back. I’m going over to the Dark Side; I have joined the Republican Party. If we’re...
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05:05 AM
September 04, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Natural rights derive from natural moral law, expressed by the universal ethic. They are natural in arising from human nature rather than from any culture of personal belief. The premises from which natural moral law derives...
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07:23 AM
September 03, 2007
by Paul Jacob It's almost back to school time, so we're hearing stories about schools and students getting ready. Unfortunately, in the Washington, D.C. area, these are not children's stories, but horror stories. Just the other day it was reported...
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10:19 AM
September 01, 2007
by Carl S. Milsted, Jr. In a recent column on fmnn.com, I recommended that the Libertarian Party abandon its slogan “The Party of Principle” and adopt a slogan more related to freedom. As usual with such suggestions, there were cries...
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12:55 PM
August 31, 2007
by Ron Paul The recent and tragic bridge collapse in Minnesota raises many questions in Americans' minds about our aging infrastructure, and what is being done to maintain it. Questions such as: "Was I-35 an isolated accident or are we...
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06:10 AM
August 30, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris This is going to be my last column ever. Well, maybe not ever, but at least a little while. Let me put it this way: Remember when ABC put Geena Davis’s “Commander In Chief” on hiatus?...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:39 AM
August 29, 2007
by Micah Tillman Recent reports of tension over changing primary dates between the DNC and the Florida legislature lead us to ask: Why are lawmakers deciding when political parties can get together to vote on their candidates? Why, in fact,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:24 AM
August 28, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The news media has focused on the subprime real estate loan problem, which has roiled stock markets around the world. These are loans made to borrowers with poor credit. The loans are often made with loose...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:58 AM
August 27, 2007
by Paul Jacob After the collapse of Minnesota's Interstate 35W bridge, Governor Tim Pawlenty relented on his opposition to increasing gas taxes to pay for infrastructure. But what was interesting was not the I-told-you-so crowing from Minnesota's tax-increase warriors, but...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:35 AM
August 24, 2007
by Ron Paul As markets went on a rollercoaster ride last week, our economy is coming close to a day of reckoning for loose credit policies being followed by the Federal Reserve Bank. Simply, foreign banks we have been relying...
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07:26 AM
August 23, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris Jonathan David Morris: Good morning. I’m Jonathan David Morris, and today I’m joined by a very special guest, George W. Bush’s outgoing chief political advisor, Mr. Karl Frickin’ Rove. Karl, thanks for dropping in. Karl Frickin’...
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05:07 AM
August 22, 2007
By Chuck Muth The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, wants to buy up Sierra Health Services in Nevada . The merger would give the new company a virtual monopoly over health insurance in the Silver State , reducing competition,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:52 AM
August 21, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary When the Republican Party candidates for president learned that the Democratic Party candidates had met with Henry Plottre, four of them sought to also have a meeting. The candidates were Jollyami, Mycane, Bumknee, and Runpal. They...
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08:39 AM
August 20, 2007
by Paul Jacob I've never met Norman Borlaug. If I bumped into him at the local diner, I wouldn't recognize him. He's 93, so if I did bump into him, I hope the bump would be figurative, not literal. But...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:57 AM
August 17, 2007
by Ron Paul Last week this column addressed the train wreck that federal spending has become. To score political points politicians will make loud noise about fairly small matters such as earmarks, even while refusing to address the real problem....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:29 AM
August 16, 2007
by Micah Tillman A caller on Tuesday asked Rush Limbaugh, “why can’t we all just get along?” He felt that Democrat-Republican conflict was, at best, unnecessary. Why not compromise? Limbaugh responded that there can be no compromise on principles. We...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
11:53 AM
by Jonathan David Morris We all know the story about the stupid lady who sued McDonald’s because she spilled hot coffee in her lap. We all know about the fat kids who got fat eating Mickey D’s three times a...
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05:40 AM
August 14, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Four of the Democratic Party candidates for president of the United States traveled to London to visit the world’s most famous master of magic, Henry Plottre. When they wrote to him seeking his help in finding...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:15 AM
August 13, 2007
by Paul Jacob Last year Google started Google U.S. Government Search, a Web service designed to make finding information about the federal government easier. A few months ago the western states of Arizona, California and Utah, along with my home...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:27 AM
August 11, 2007
by Micah Tillman My friends at Enter Stage Right recently published a piece I wrote on the strange idea that marriage should no longer be legal.[1] I thought the proposal was new, judging from the reaction I would invariably get...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:50 AM
August 10, 2007
by Ron Paul These last few weeks the House has been in a rush to pass spending bills before August recess. In fact, visitors walking the hallways of Congress become immediately struck by the apparent spending battle between the “conservative...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:26 AM
August 09, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris Last week’s bridge collapse in Minnesota was a tragedy. Another word we could use to describe it would be to call it a metaphor. I’m not an engineer, and I’m not going to pretend I’m the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:24 AM
August 07, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Henry Plottre was an English boy who went to magic school to become a wizard. He was a brilliant student and mastered how to make rabbits appear, how to make buildings disappear, and how to say...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:56 AM
August 02, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris Anyone who’s ever spent any time on YouTube knows it’s the Internet’s greatest time-suck yet. Thirty second clips spawn 30 minute sessions as one bumbling weatherman leads to another, till suddenly you realize you’ve spent the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:53 AM
July 31, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary A fundamental principle of morality is that good does not cancel evil. Yet this is what advocates of carbon credits seek to do. They think if a person pollutes the environment, this evil is cancelled by...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:09 AM
July 30, 2007
by Paul Jacob Something a bit odd is happening in Michigan. Public school districts are advertising . . . in newspapers, on radio, through the mail. All sorts of enterprises advertise for customers, of course. What's odd is that it...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
11:14 AM
July 27, 2007
by Ron Paul Last week, I wrote about the ideology of globalism and how it underlies certain government policies. Managed trade agreements, international military adventurism, and amnesty for illegal immigrants all emanate from this ideology. Yet globalism has a consequence...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:31 AM
July 25, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris Is it just me or has this been the best week in the history of American professional sports? Somehow, in the course of the last few days, the usual sports discussion has evolved to include steroids,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:28 AM
July 20, 2007
by Ron Paul The recent defeat of the amnesty bill in the Senate came after outraged Americans made it clear to the political elite that they would not tolerate this legislation, which would further erode our national sovereignty. Similarly, polls...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:19 AM
July 19, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris It’s great to see so many Republicans jumping off the George W. Bush bandwagon. Now that it’s considered political suicide for the GOP to support its own president, maybe we’ll finally have a party in Washington...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:25 AM
July 18, 2007
By Chuck Muth Last month Anna Nicole Smith's will was admitted to probate. Up for grabs is $710,000 - maybe more depending on the final outcome of Marshall v. Marshall . Yes, that's right. Even though Smith is dead, her...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:55 AM
July 17, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary President Bush is promoting the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, but why? Kosovo has been under the administration of the United Nations. The Kosovars, as ethnic Albanians, seek to be an independent country, while the Serbs...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:56 AM
July 16, 2007
by Paul Jacob Sundry censors among the party now in power in Congress — those ardent foes of the Culture of Corruption — are eager to "solve" the problem of telecommunicated "hate speech." You know, like conservative talk radio and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:09 AM
July 13, 2007
By Jonathan David Morris You may have heard that a budget impasse caused a one-day shutdown of Pennsylvania’s state government this week. The only thing I don’t understand is why the news reported this as if it were a bad...
Posted by KevinRollins at
10:29 AM
July 11, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary In June 2007, Florida's governor signed into law a ballot measure that would enact a big reduction in the state's property taxes. There will also be a referendum on an additional tax cut in January 29,...
Posted by KevinRollins at
09:55 AM
July 09, 2007
By Paul Jacob Could Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards actually be right about something? Not where to go to get a haircut, mind you, I mean about there being two Americas. There is the vibrant America . . . and...
Posted by KevinRollins at
10:28 AM
July 06, 2007
by Ron Paul This week Americans will gather around the grill, attend parades and watch fireworks displays, all in the celebration of the signing of our Declaration of Independence. At the same time, we will have thousands of bureaucrats, troops...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:36 AM
July 05, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris I’ve spent the last two weeks writing about immigration. I’m going to do it one more time this week, for two important reasons: (1) Because I have another point to make; and (2) Because I’ve never...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:44 AM
by Jonathan David Morris I’ve spent the last two weeks writing about immigration. I’m going to do it one more time this week, for two important reasons: (1) Because I have another point to make; and (2) Because I’ve never...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:44 AM
July 03, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Who should own the North Pole? There are international agreements on Antarctica and the Arctic, which says that no country may claim land in the polar areas. Now that is about to change. Russia's president Vladimir...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:32 AM
July 02, 2007
by Paul Jacob Nine hundred forty-seven dollars and 37 cents per page. I suppose you could say that's the price that Representative William Jefferson, Democrat from Louisiana, paid for keeping bribe money in his home fridge. The FBI found his...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:59 AM
June 29, 2007
by Ron Paul The debate in Washington has again turned to federal funding of stem cell research, with President Bush moving to veto legislation passed recently by Congress. Those engaged in this debate tend to split into warring camps claiming...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:11 AM
June 28, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris After writing my column on immigration last week, an old colleague wrote and raised a fair point: It’s easy to say open borders equal freedom, but what do you do when immigrants show up and start...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:23 AM
June 27, 2007
By Alex Peak I am currently annoyed at Facebook. I shall enumerate the reasons below. I Facebook used to be the perfect networking website for campus groups, such as my group, the College Libertarians of Towson (CLT). Whenever we were...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:24 AM
June 26, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The federal government has initiated an anti-trust action against the Whole Foods grocery company to prevent it from merging with Wild Oats. A “trust’ is an organization that can be treated as a legal person; big...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:51 AM
June 25, 2007
by Paul Jacob There are about a dozen candidates in each party I don't want to see as president. So I guess that limits the possibilities. We could do worse than former Senator Fred Thompson. Look where he is on...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:47 AM
June 22, 2007
by Ron Paul Last week's big battle on the House floor over earmarks in the annual appropriations bills was won by Republicans, who succeeded in getting the Democratic leadership to agree to clearly identify each earmark in the future. While...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:47 AM
June 21, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris I’m glad immigration is in the news these days. I love when people start discussing immigration. No other topic does a better job of popping the veins in Bill O’Reilly’s forehead. It’s amazing how rarely we...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:00 AM
June 20, 2007
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. At the Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, we had a bit of high drama. Outsider candidate Ron Paul had the temerity to suggest that the U.S. was attacked on 9/11 not because we are...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
10:40 AM
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. At the Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, we had a bit of high drama. Outsider candidate Ron Paul had the temerity to suggest that the U.S. was attacked on 9/11 not because we are...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
10:40 AM
June 19, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The civil war between the Fatah and Hamas parties in Gaza and the victory by Hamas militants is yet another example of the dismal failure of mass democracy. The main purpose of democracy is to prevent...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:50 AM
June 18, 2007
by Paul Jacob Your typical pickpocket shows at least some restraint. He's not shouting from the rooftops about what a great rip-off artist he is. He fears discovery. We don't usually arrest our politicians for picking our pockets. Still, many...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:25 AM
June 15, 2007
by Ron Paul Although action in the United States Senate this week has slowed passage of the amnesty bill, it is not yet dead as President Bush remains committed to this approach. That is why the President recently suggested that...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:51 AM
June 14, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris You know, I’ve been watching these presidential debates a lot lately, paying attention to the campaign, and all that jazz, and the thing I find interesting about the 2008 election is no one is talking about...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:42 AM
June 12, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Thousands of violent demonstrators flocked to the G-8 summit of the chiefs of the major countries in Heiligendamm, Germany. Several hundred protestors and police officers were injured. The G-8 is a group of the eight largest...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:27 AM
June 11, 2007
by Paul Jacob Thanks to the tenacity of Homer Tourkakis, Missouri property owners have a major victory on their side in the battle against eminent domain abuse. The city of Arnold, together with a developer called THF Reality, had plans...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:46 AM
June 08, 2007
by Ron Paul Good intentions frequently lead to unintended bad consequences. Tough choices, doing what is right, often leads to unanticipated good results. The growing demand by the American people for us to leave Iraq prompts the naysayers to predict...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:36 AM
June 07, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris I found myself watching another Democratic presidential debate the other day. I’m honestly not sure why I keep subjecting myself to these things. Whose idea was it to put Wolf Blitzer onstage with the Democrats-for-president the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:53 AM
June 06, 2007
By Carl Milsted, Jr. Environmentalists want to reduce suburban sprawl. Progressives want to reduce the wealth gap. Conservatives want to teach their children traditional values. Libertarians want to cut taxes. Guess what, we can do all these things at once,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:22 AM
June 05, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary If you are a U.S. person, your tax dollars may soon be working to liquify coal. A New York Times story by Edmund Andrews on May 29, 2007, reports on a proposal to subsidize coal-to-liquid production...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:25 AM
June 04, 2007
by Paul Jacob Sometimes little things mean a lot. Like a sticker with the slashed out words EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE that Ron Kohr wore at a sewer authority meeting in York, Pennsylvania. Kohr is protesting the authority’s attempt to condemn...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:26 AM
June 01, 2007
by Ron Paul The much-vaunted Senate “compromise” on immigration is a compromise alright: a compromise of our laws, a compromise of our sovereignty, and a compromise of the Second Amendment. That anyone in Washington believes this is a credible approach...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:43 AM
May 31, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris Dear Conventional Wisdom, Who do you think would make a better president: Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? Sincerely, John Edwards Dear Ambulance Chaser, The answer is “Neither.” Unfortunately, he isn’t running. • • • Dear Conventional...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:20 AM
May 29, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary In the original practice in India, Hindu Yoga consists of physical postures and mental methods such as meditation which create both better health and a more enlightened understanding of the nature of our existence. As usually...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:50 AM
May 25, 2007
by Ron Paul Many of my colleagues, faced with the reality that the war in Iraq is not going well, line up to place all the blame on the president. The president “mismanaged” the war, they say. “It’s all the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:11 AM
May 24, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris I like how people think Rudy Giuliani won the second Republican presidential debate. I guess that depends on your definition of “won.” To me, he only won it if the idea was to look like a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:52 AM
May 22, 2007
by Paul Jacob Congratulations! You did it! And I mean you, listening to the radio in your car, or peering through your email inbox or surfing the Web to SamAdamsAlliance.org. If you were one of the thousands who called or...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:00 AM
May 21, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary to the tune of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Lyrics at http://www.norbyhus.dk/valance.html) Melody at http://www.garyrog.50megs.com/midi/manwhoshotlibertyvalance.mid Based on the true Liberty Dollar story When federal agents came to town, the freedom folk would hide, yes, hide....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:40 AM
May 18, 2007
by Ron Paul Congress voted this past week to authorize nearly $40 billion for the Homeland Security Department, but the result will likely continue to be more bureaucracy and less security for Americans. Five years into this new Department, Congress...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:43 AM
May 17, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris So let me get this straight. A couple of weeks ago, Don Imus gets fired for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed ho’s.” A few weeks later, the same guy who led the anti-Imus charge,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:16 AM
May 16, 2007
By Carl Milsted, Jr. Does money buy happiness? The communitarians say no, or, at least, they say that additional money beyond a rather low threshold of basic needs buys very little. More to the point, they say the tremendous increase...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:45 AM
May 15, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary It has become common knowledge that people in wealthier countries are getting fatter, especially so in the United States. American children are becoming weightier, and we see more people waddling down the street and flocking to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:38 AM
May 14, 2007
by Paul Jacob Governments are supposed to administer elections, with impartiality. Not take sides. Because you can't have a fair election when the referee is playing for one of the teams. That's why it's illegal in most states for government...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:16 AM
May 11, 2007
by Ron Paul Last week, the House of Representatives acted with disdain for the Constitution and individual liberty by passing HR 1592, a bill creating new federal programs to combat so-called “hate crimes.” The legislation defines a hate crime as...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:27 AM
May 10, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris I love how it’s May 2007 and the 2008 primary season is apparently set to get started. The Florida Legislature recently voted to destroy every semblance of electoral order by moving its presidential primary from early...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:23 AM
May 08, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary What justifies the ownership of anything? All moral justification is based on natural moral law, as expressed by the moral imperative for humanity, the universal ethic. As recognized long ago by the natural-law British philosopher John...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:32 AM
May 07, 2007
by Paul Jacob We often take freedom of speech for granted. We shouldn't. And we expect those in government to serve the people, not themselves. But reality is often far different. Two years ago a referendum campaign was launched in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:40 AM
May 04, 2007
by Ron Paul This week, Congress finalized the controversial $124 billion Iraq emergency supplemental spending bill, with the House and Senate both voting in favor of final passage. The majority of my Republican colleagues and I voted against this measure,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:48 AM
May 03, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris A few years ago, James Frey wrote a memoir called A Million Little Pieces, which created a controversy when it was revealed most of the things he was remembering were completely made up. As far as...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:52 AM
May 01, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary One hundred years ago, there was a financial panic in the United States. There were runs on the banks as depositors rushed to take out their money before they ran out of currency. The stock market...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:56 AM
April 30, 2007
by Paul Jacob "You shouldn't go around touting that you balanced your budget when your deficit is $44 billion." Good advice, no? Well, Sheila Weinberg said it first. Ms. Weinberg has taken on the world's most yawner of a topic,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:47 AM
April 27, 2007
by Ron Paul The senseless and horrific killings last week on the campus of Virginia Tech University reinforced an uneasy feeling many Americans experienced after September 11th: namely, that government cannot protect us. No matter how many laws we pass,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:41 AM
April 26, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris I think I’ve seen roughly 800 arrangements and spellings for the name of the kid who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech last week. I don’t really care which version is accurate. I’m going with “Cho...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:29 AM
April 24, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary I was going to write about the killing of dolphins in Japan. Porpoises and dolphins are aquatic mammals of the suborder Odontoceti. (There are also fish called dolphins, which are entirely different animals.) Mammalian dolphins belong...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:10 AM
April 23, 2007
by Paul Jacob What a horrific event. One young man murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech. It is a tragedy for all of us. We all have loved ones. We can all imagine the pain of rearing a child to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:44 AM
April 20, 2007
by Ron Paul The controversy surrounding remarks by talk show host Don Imus shows that the nation remains incredibly sensitive about matters of race, despite the outward progress of the last 40 years. A nation that once prided itself on...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:04 AM
by Ron Paul The controversy surrounding remarks by talk show host Don Imus shows that the nation remains incredibly sensitive about matters of race, despite the outward progress of the last 40 years. A nation that once prided itself on...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:04 AM
April 19, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris Don Imus has been fired from his CBS radio show and MSNBC simulcast for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed ho’s.” As with most major news stories, this one has inspired a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:28 AM
April 18, 2007
By Kevin Rollins Kevin Howley, associate professor of media studies at DePauw University, is really worried about media consolidation. Looking in particular at the Sirius-XM merger, he howls “monopoly” and sees just about everyone getting hurt by this Frankenstein creation....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:34 AM
April 17, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Pope Benedict XVI has written a book, Jesus of Nazareth, in which he says that “capitalism” is cruel because it exploits the poor. It is his first book as the Pope; he wrote several books previously....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:48 AM
April 16, 2007
by Paul Jacob On April Fool's day, it did command The Washington Post front page. Maybe the story was just a funny joke. But I didn't get it. The article, "Corruption Stains Timber Trade," details total disregard for both the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:18 AM
April 15, 2007
By Carl Milsted, Jr., According to many statistics, the wealth of our nation continues to grow. And yes, this includes most of the poor – if you look in terms of cars, calories, air conditioning, etc. And yet, there is...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:21 AM
April 13, 2007
by Ron Paul Recently I had the opportunity to question Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke when he appeared before the congressional Joint Economic committee. The topic that morning was the state of the American economy, and many of my colleagues...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
11:08 AM
April 12, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris The 2008 presidential election is now less than 19 months away. As far as I’m concerned, that means now is the time to start planning how to destroy it. Before now, I never would have written...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:06 AM
April 10, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary A report from the U.K. Department for Education and Skills indicates that terrorists and extremists have scored a major intellectual victory. British teachers are avoiding teaching about the Holocaust, the murder of millions of Jews and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:34 AM
April 09, 2007
by Paul Jacob I like trees, but I wouldn't call myself a tree-hugger, exactly. If there were trees on the land where my house was being built, I'm glad the builders chopped them down before laying the foundation. I wouldn't...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:26 AM
April 06, 2007
by Ron Paul The fiscal year 2008 budget, passed in the House of Representatives last week, is a monument to irresponsibility and profligacy. It shows that Congress remains oblivious to the economic troubles facing the nation, and that political expediency...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:10 AM
April 05, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris I wish the news would stop covering the Middle East. Let me rephrase that: I wish there were nothing about the Middle East for the news to cover. But since there is, I wish they wouldn’t....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:42 AM
April 03, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The Federal Reserve system, America’s central bank, faces difficult choices. Past increases in the money supply are now pulling prices up, as monetary inflation creates price inflation. The mission of the Federal Reserve board is price...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:19 AM
April 02, 2007
by Paul Jacob The gall. I mean, don't these guys realize how obvious they are? In Arizona, supporters of proposed new reforms say they would "correct flaws" in the initiative process and make it "more open." What does "more open"...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:22 AM
March 30, 2007
by Ron Paul Last week the House passed an emergency supplemental spending bill that was the worst of all worlds. The president’s request would have already set a spending record, but the Democratic leadership packed 21 billion additional dollars of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:01 AM
March 29, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris Okay, I’ve finally got it. I’ve finally figured out a way all Americans can pitch in to save the planet. Drink beer. I can’t believe this simple solution was sitting in front of us—right there in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:46 AM
March 27, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Some wealthy environmentalists who urge the world to reduce global-warming pollution are themselves using huge amounts of pollution-producing energy. They own houses which consume much more energy for heating and lighting than the average dwelling, have...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:01 AM
March 26, 2007
by Paul Jacob Is the best way to reduce poverty always a government program? Take the case of Wal-Mart. Many self-proclaimed advocates for the poor attack Wal-Mart ad nauseam as some kind of devil. But last year a study showed...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:34 AM
March 23, 2007
by Ron Paul The U.S. housing market, long considered vulnerable by many economists, is now on the verge of suffering a serious collapse in many regions. Commodities guru and hedge fund manager Jim Rogers warns that real estate in expensive...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:51 AM
March 22, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris It seems like the Transportation Security Administration really put a lot of thought into which items they decided to ban from airplanes. I was checking out their guidelines the other day before making a trip for...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:54 AM
March 20, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary As reported by the Associated Press, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed on March 14, 2007 that the Ninth Amendment to the United States is now null and void, and that the federal government...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:52 AM
March 19, 2007
by Paul Jacob Representative Lindsley Smith, of Fayetteville, Arkansas recently proposed that her state celebrate Thomas Paine's birthday, January 29, as "Thomas Paine Day." To her, this seemed like common sense. But Representative Sid Rosenbaum, of Little Rock, objected. Oh,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:47 AM
March 16, 2007
by Ron Paul Last Friday a federal appeals court in Washington DC issued a ruling that hopefully will result in the restoration of 2nd Amendment rights in the nation's capital. It appears the Court rejected the District of Columbia 's...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:17 AM
March 15, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris Ah, the presidential election. It feels sort of weird to be discussing the 2008 presidential election. After all, it’s only March 2007. However, that’s what’s in the news, and the news is what I write about....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:39 AM
March 13, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary There has been some discussion in Internet groups about the meanings and economics of wealth and capital, so perhaps the following analysis can help sort out the distinctions. Wealth is property with economic value. Economic wealth...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:32 AM
March 12, 2007
by Paul Jacob Democrats in Congress campaigned effectively against Republican corruption, including the dictatorial way the GOP ran the House, shutting down debate and shutting out Democratic alternatives. Last year, before the election, then Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi argued for...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:35 AM
by Paul Jacob Democrats in Congress campaigned effectively against Republican corruption, including the dictatorial way the GOP ran the House, shutting down debate and shutting out Democratic alternatives. Last year, before the election, then Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi argued for...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:35 AM
March 09, 2007
by Ron Paul David Walker, Comptroller General at the Government Accountability Office, appeared on the show “60 Minutes” last evening to discuss the federal budget outlook. If you saw the show, you know that he painted a very sobering picture...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:24 AM
by Ron Paul David Walker, Comptroller General at the Government Accountability Office, appeared on the show “60 Minutes” last evening to discuss the federal budget outlook. If you saw the show, you know that he painted a very sobering picture...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:24 AM
March 08, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris Dear The American People, Hi there from your friends at the White House. As you may know, the worst paper in the history of civilization, The New York Times, recently published an editorial called “The Must-Do...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:23 AM
March 07, 2007
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. President Bush has finally come up with a truly good idea: a plan to restore the market for healthcare in this country, a plan that reduces moral hazards and the subsidies for wage slavery. Alas,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:59 AM
March 06, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary On Tuesday, February 27, 2007, Mr. Market had a big fall, following a big drop of nine percent in the Chinese stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial average fell 533 points for the week, more than...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:54 AM
March 05, 2007
by Paul Jacob Presidents' Day came and went . . . and I didn't give my wife a present! As you age, you forget these things. In honor of George Washington, I could have given her a wooden smile, or...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:16 AM
March 02, 2007
by Ron Paul Hundreds of thousands of American troops already occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, a number that is rising as the military surge moves forward. The justification, given endlessly since September 11th, is that both support terrorism and thus pose...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:52 AM
March 01, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris For those of you who were lucky enough to miss it, the Fox News Channel recently aired a new show called “The Half Hour News Hour,” which attempts to do for conservatives what Comedy Central’s “Daily...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:44 AM
February 28, 2007
by Paul Gessing With Ron Paul in the race for President, the Republican nomination for “free liberal candidate” is all sown up. With Dr. Paul adhering to strict principles in line with the United States Constitution and every other candidate...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:09 AM
February 27, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The war in Iraq has let loose extreme supremacists who seek to murder anyone not of their faith. Iraq is being torn apart by religious wars in which the supremacists are killing not only those of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:06 AM
February 26, 2007
by Paul Jacob Starbucks is coffee. Actually not just coffee, but a way of presenting coffee. Designer coffee, if you will. Lattes and such. Starbucks is also a corporation, a demon in the eyes of some. Recently a Starbucks rep...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:25 AM
February 23, 2007
by Ron Paul Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies twice every year before the congressional Financial Services committee, and I look forward to these opportunities to raise questions about monetary policy. I believe monetary policy is critically important yet overlooked...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:35 AM
February 22, 2007
by Richard A. Cheatham, Press Media Group, LLC There’s a little dog to whom we all owe a great deal. His name is Toto. Remember in the “Wizard of Oz” where Dorothy’s little dog Toto pulled back the curtain exposing...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:31 AM
by Jonathan David Morris This week is the fifth anniversary of my first weekly column. I realize this has no bearing on my readers, who wouldn’t know my fifth anniversary from my fourth anniversary or my fourth anniversary from the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:26 AM
February 21, 2007
By Carl Milsted, Jr. An astonishing thing happened during Bush’s latest State of the Union Address: George Bush actually proposed something good – nay, great! George Bush, the Man from Halliburton, the epitome of pork barrel Republicanism, called for the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:27 AM
February 20, 2007
by Paul Gessing Watching cable news makes you stupid. There, I said it. I have previously expressed my preference for The Jon Stewart Show over the offerings on cable, but the recent coverage of the death of Anna Nicole takes...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:03 AM
by Fred E. Foldvary The United States Mint has begun a new series of dollar coins. They will show the U.S. presidents in historical order, with a new coin issued every three months. The coins will be the same size...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:58 AM
February 19, 2007
by Paul Jacob The Federal Highway Administration recently reprimanded Oregon's Metro -- the bigger-than-countywide government surrounding Portland -- for goofy planning. The federal agency had difficultly finding any transportation focus in Metro's Regional Transportation Plan. Instead, the plan focuses on...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:31 AM
February 16, 2007
by Ron Paul Two weeks ago I discussed how Congress and the administration use our fiat money system to literally create some of the funds needed to prosecute our ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve already spent more than...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:16 AM
February 15, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris The only thing weirder than Anna Nicole Smith dropping dead at the age of 39 is how her death somehow inspired several days of wall-to-wall news coverage. This is a woman who by most accounts was...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:19 AM
February 14, 2007
by Richard A. Cheatham, Press Media Group, LLC You may have a personal crusade or two about which you feel passionate. Wonderful! They help give life meaning. I obviously have them too. No doubt, you want other people to jump...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:59 AM
February 13, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Those fools in California thought they could limit government and slash property taxes by merely passing a law. In 1978, the voters of California approved Proposition 13, which cut the real property tax to one percent...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:03 AM
February 12, 2007
by Paul Jacob In the past 20 years the cost of electricity derived from wind has been cut down by a whopping 80 percent. Wow! But it's still not enough to make it even comparable to traditional energy sources, such...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:10 AM
February 09, 2007
by Ron Paul With the elections over and the 110th Congress settling in, the media have been reporting ad nauseam about who has assumed new political power in Washington. We're subjected to breathless reports about emerging power brokers in Congress;...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:12 AM
February 07, 2007
By Chuck Muth Try to think of some societal problem in which the government solution didn’t make the situation worse or more expensive. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Over the past decade, the Internet has changed our lives in ways impossible...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:48 AM
February 06, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary Eminent domain is the power of government to forcibly take private real estate from the title holders. Under the Constitution of the United States, the Fifth Amendment limits the power of eminent domain, stating: “nor shall...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:17 AM
February 05, 2007
by Paul Jacob Jane Glover, former mayor of New London, Connecticut, received a special holiday card this season. The front of the card was an artful rendering of a house, flag flying in the front, stars twinkling in the background,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:31 AM
February 02, 2007
by Ron Paul The Pentagon recently reported that it now spends roughly $8.4 billion per month waging the war in Iraq, while the additional cost of our engagement in Afghanistan brings the monthly total to a staggering $10 billion. Since...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:26 AM
February 01, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris It’s incredibly sad that doctors had to put down Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. It’s equally sad that his death is being described as something his doctors “had to do.” Don’t get me wrong here: I understand...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:30 AM
January 31, 2007
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. In my previous column I half-jokingly suggested that it might make more sense to plug your house into your hybrid car than to plug your hybrid car into your house. This was assuming a plug-in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:12 AM
January 30, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The State of California has increased its legal minimum wage, and now there is pending legislation to increase the legal federal minimum wage for the USA. It is illegal to pay workers less than the legal...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:38 AM
January 29, 2007
by Paul Jacob Remember how Marie Antoinette said, or supposedly said, "Let them eat cake"? This subjunctive injunction came to mind when I heard about how the mayor of Los Angeles is telling people to take the bus. "You've got...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:51 AM
January 26, 2007
by Ron Paul Former President Carter’s new book about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine has raised the ire of Americans on two sides of the debate. I say “two sides” rather than “both sides,” because there is another...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:38 AM
January 25, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris I like how news shows are devoting serious time to the question of whether American Idol is “too mean” this year. No, it’s not too mean this year. Nor was it too mean last year—the last...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:14 AM
January 24, 2007
by Richard A. Cheatham, Press Media Group, LLC I’ve often said that basic human nature hasn’t changed in recorded history and that it’s the same for all people. We’re really not that much different from race to race, from place...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:11 AM
January 23, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The earth has a bipolar disorder. Global warming threatens the wildlife of both the north and south polar regions. In the north, the polar bears are dying off because the ice shelves they depend on to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:15 AM
January 22, 2007
by Paul Jacob Beware of "fairness." Especially when it comes to basic rights, like freedom of speech. Freedom is better than fairness. I'm referring to the Fairness Doctrine. It was something that the Federal Communications Commission used to impose on...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:05 AM
January 19, 2007
by Ron Paul While the president’s announcement that an additional 20,000 troops would be sent to Iraq dominated the headlines last week, the real story was the president’s sharp rhetoric towards Iran and Syria. And recent moves by the administration...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:09 AM
January 18, 2007
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Environmentalists around the world are rejoicing as I write this; General Motors is showing off a new electric concept car, the Chevrolet Volt. Using still unaffordable batteries, this car can travel up to 40 miles...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
10:19 AM
January 16, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary The arguments being made for or against increasing the U.S. troops in Iraq have left out the essential details of what exactly they are supposed to do, what the new strategy consists of. Strangely, even the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:26 AM
January 15, 2007
by Paul Jacob I don't think I could do without certain modern conveniences, like the Amish do. I need my Blackberry. But we can still learn from the kind of self-sufficiency the Amish practice. Namely, their habit of doing entirely...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:21 AM
January 12, 2007
By Chuck Muth When Congress passed the Medicare prescription drug bill in 2003, the intention was clearly for the program to be a competitive operation where private insurers and prescription drug sellers would be competing for business in a free...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
11:27 AM
by Ron Paul Through a Freedom of Information Act Request, a private group recently obtained a copy of a 2004 agreement between the United States and Mexico that will allow hundreds of thousands of noncitizens to receive Social Security benefits....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:29 AM
January 11, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris On Saturday, January 6, 2007, it was 70 degrees where I live. People were wearing t-shirts, shorts, and sandals as they walked down the street. I even drove to the store with my windows rolled down...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:48 AM
January 10, 2007
By Carl Milsted, Jr. New Year’s Eve has come and gone: a night of drunken revelry – and drunken drivers. Which brings me to the subject of Peak Oil. According to the Peak Oil theorists, we are rapidly approaching the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
10:24 AM
January 09, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary For the last few years, the Canadian economy was thriving. Rich with natural resources, foreign investment and the export of minerals, energy, and lumber gave Canada a strong currency. Priced in Canadian dollars, imports were cheap,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:55 AM
January 08, 2007
by Paul Jacob I, for one, like beauty. So this headline caught my eye: "Spending Cap May Block Beauty." The subhead went on to inform that: "Improving City’s Blank Canvas Could Require Art of Politics." Is it just me? Somehow...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:43 AM
January 05, 2007
by Ron Paul The financial press reported last week that the euro, the new currency created only five years ago and used by most European nations, has supplanted the U.S. dollar as the most widely used form of cash internationally....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:52 AM
January 04, 2007
by Jonathan David Morris George Bush recently described America’s performance in the Iraq War like this: “We’re not winning, we’re not losing.” This means we’re losing. Here are six other things you probably didn’t know: 1. The sky is blue....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:30 AM
January 03, 2007
Maus and Musings on the Holocaust By Paul Gessing I was doing some “light” reading over the holidays. Actually, I picked up a copy of the book “Maus: A Survivors Tale” and the thing was that I couldn’t put it...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:57 AM
January 02, 2007
by Fred E. Foldvary A “petty tyrant” can be a person who causes distress by imposing his will on others using psychological pressure rather than physical force. Many people are petty tyrants without realizing it. The beginning of a new...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:29 AM
January 01, 2007
by Paul Jacob I've said it before: I like free stuff. I especially like Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia was designed to let just about anyone write and edit its articles. Working on similar principles to the Linux operating system for...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:25 AM
December 31, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary The origins of evil are the same as the root causes of social problems: ignorance, apathy, and greed. Specifically, evil arises from ignorance about ethics, a lack of sympathy or empathy for others, and seeking more...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:27 AM
December 29, 2006
By Ron Paul [December 25, 2006] Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. In Iraq, however, war rages on with no end in sight. The midterm congressional elections are over, and the Iraq Study Group...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:02 AM
December 28, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris On January 1, 2007, you will probably forget 2006 ever happened. Luckily, I have been shedding massive amounts of blood all year long just to record the whole thing for you. Here are the good parts....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:56 AM
December 27, 2006
By Carl Milsted, Jr. The Nanny State strikes again! New York City is banning trans fats from its restaurants. No longer will restaurateurs be allowed to deep fry your chicken wings in shortening or dollop your baked potato with margarine....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:22 AM
December 26, 2006
by Paul Jacob Apparently, a lot of people want to kill Wal-Mart quickly . . . since Wal-Mart management won't let unions kill off the firm slowly. I'm not one of these people, even though Wal-Mart has done stuff I've...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:59 AM
December 22, 2006
by Ron Paul It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world. George Washington Last week I wrote about the critical need for Congress to reassert its authority over foreign policy,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:18 AM
December 21, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris Can this be the end of stupid Christmas decorations, please? Can 2006 be the last time we celebrate Christmas with giant inflatable snow globes on our front lawns? I can’t take it anymore. I’m not Scrooge....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:20 AM
December 20, 2006
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. The Democrats have taken over Congress; sunlight is to be shed on the earmarks and corruption; George Bush is reined in. Hurrah! But what about the rest of the Democratic agenda? What about the promised...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:26 AM
December 19, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary The price of corn shot up during the last months of 2006. Corn sold for $2 per bushel at the beginning of 2006, and by the end of the year, the price had zoomed to $3.75....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:24 AM
December 18, 2006
by Paul Jacob Every time I have to flush a toilet twice, I think of Congress. No, I'm not crazy. It's actually Congress's fault. Well, I may be crazy, but in this case my point is: it really is the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:59 AM
December 15, 2006
by Ron Paul The Iraq Study Group released its report last week, giving the president several recommendations to consider in prosecuting the war. Similarly, the incoming Democratic leaders in Congress promise to urge the President to take a new course...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:52 AM
December 14, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris It amazes me how 20 years have passed since Cabbage Patch Mania and people are still camping out for “hot ticket” Christmas toys. A couple of weeks ago, people were paying two to three or even...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:25 AM
December 13, 2006
by Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Another year, another election, another set of unsatisfying choices for voters here in Buncombe County, NC... On the one hand, we had Congressman Charles Taylor, a stalwart member of an increasingly corrupt Republican Party, a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:49 AM
December 12, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary Land rent is recognized by enlightened economists as the supremely equitable and efficient source of public revenue. Rent is a social surplus, and tapping it involves no excess burden, unlike taxing productive activity. One type of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:18 AM
December 11, 2006
by Paul Jacob You know something has hit the big time when it's in the news every week. Take YouTube, the upstart website for home videos and video clip publication. Videos on the site make the news, as does the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:02 AM
December 08, 2006
by Ron Paul The financial press reported last week that the value of the U.S. dollar plummeted to a 14-year low against the British pound, and weakened against the Euro and Yen. Many financial analysts predict continued rough times for...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:56 AM
December 07, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris My local news station recently did a piece on something called “desk rage,” which is apparently supposed to be like road rage, only at work instead of on the roads. According to the reporter, desk rage...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:30 AM
By Chuck Muth Talk about an inconvenient truth. It’s right there. In black-and-white. Article VI of the United States Constitution: “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:28 AM
December 06, 2006
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. There is something about energy that brings out the sillies in politicians. Everywhere you look you can find politicians and activists who think that “energy is different,” that “the rules of economics do not apply...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:26 AM
December 05, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary The 18-year real estate boom-bust cycle has been running on schedule. The last real estate depression was in 1990, and if the 18-year pattern continues, the next depression will occur around the year 2008. The cycle...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:32 AM
By William R. Maurer Imagine you own a business that you built from the ground up. You have satisfied customers, good employees and provide a useful service. There's just one problem: your competitors don't like that you charge less while...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:26 AM
December 04, 2006
by Paul Jacob Tired of election analysis? Think there should be some kind of limit, rather than allowing it all to drone on and on and on? Well, here’s some analysis you’ll like. It’s about a limit. An article by...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:05 AM
December 01, 2006
by Ron Paul Once again the possibility of reinstating a military draft is being discussed in Washington, and while the idea seems remote it is not unthinkable. Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel of New York, soon to be a powerful committee...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:57 AM
November 30, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris Every year, millions of kids around the world write letters to Santa in hopes of receiving gifts for Christmas. Unfortunately, these kids are idiots. Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Like schoolchildren, many political leaders also send letters...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:37 AM
November 28, 2006
by Richard A. Cheatham, Press Media Group, LLC I’ve got to come to my grandmother’s defense. Well…my great grandmother fourteen generations ago, Pocahontas. Yesterday I was in a meeting where it was mentioned that some of America’s native people considered...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:58 AM
by Fred E. Foldvary Drug warriors scored a virtual victory after the 2006 U.S. elections when they hurriedly extended the War on Drugs to a psychoactive substance previously exempt: nepetalactone, the main psychoactive ingredient in catnip. It is well known...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:50 AM
November 27, 2006
by Paul Jacob The election is over, thank goodness. Maybe I can stop living in the airport for a little while. At least I can report victories on a number of the ballot initiatives I favored, for example making it...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:34 AM
November 24, 2006
by Ron Paul The death of economist Milton Friedman last week at the age of 94 marks a great loss for advocates of freedom everywhere. He was perhaps the most successful free-market economist of the 20th century, in terms of...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:26 AM
November 23, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris (Author’s Note: I finished this article roughly six minutes before I learned O.J. Simpson’s new book had been canceled. Out of sheer laziness and the mild belief that this news only strengthens my point, I’ve decided...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:59 AM
November 22, 2006
By Carl Milsted, Jr. “Welcome to Founders College. You will be happy here! This logically follows from the fact that you followed your rational self-interest in choosing our institution. Before you begin, please review some of the rules which make...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:57 AM
November 21, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary Milton Friedman was one of the giants of economics, probably the second-best known economist in the world, after former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. In economics, Friedman's main contributions were on the theories of consumption and...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:04 AM
November 20, 2006
by Paul Jacob The other day I took on the common blather about "competitiveness." I argued that this standard talk encourages us to think about trade and government in the wrong ways. It trains us to see conflict where conflict...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:53 AM
November 17, 2006
by Ron Paul The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, is an investigative arm of Congress charged with the thankless task of accounting for the money received and spent by the federal government. As you might imagine, people who spend all...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:55 AM
November 16, 2006
By Paul Gessing Whether you are a sports fan or not, you have probably heard about Tiki Barber, the all-pro running back of the New York Giants. He has caused quite a stir this year by announcing that he plans...
Posted by KevinRollins at
10:19 AM
by Jonathan David Morris Dear Conventional Wisdom, So the GOP lost both houses of Congress. What do you make of this? Was the midterm election a rebuke of George Bush’s disastrous Iraq War policies? Sincerely, Stanley in Omaha Dear Stanley...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:17 AM
November 15, 2006
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. In reading left-leaning publications over the past year or so I have come across many articles critical of “fundamentalism.” Fundamentalists have been described as hateful, uncaring, inflexible, right wing, conservative, violent and/or unspiritual. As a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:57 AM
November 14, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary In the November 2006 election in California, a proposition would have levied a tax on oil production and prohibited companies from passing on the tax to the buyers. This proposition was numbered 87 in the multi-election...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:16 AM
November 13, 2006
by Paul Jacob Some people assume that everyone else's ideas are up for sale. Not their own, of course. Just their opponents'. This became clear in a ludicrous report in the St. Petersburg Times, entitled "Corporate spin can come in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:20 AM
November 10, 2006
by Ron Paul For most Americans, guns are not a political issue. People buy and own guns to protect their families, not to commit crimes. The truth is that even millions of Americans who support and vote for gun control...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:45 AM
November 09, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with utility companies. Never in my life have I had one as bad as my recent run-in with cable giant Comcast. After closing on our new house last Friday,...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:04 AM
November 08, 2006
By Carl Milsted, Jr. Illegal immigration is a big issue these days. It’s all over the news and blogosphere these days, and many a candidate is campaigning on this issue. But frankly, it’s all is a sham. Illegal immigration is...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:32 AM
November 07, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary With the Democratic Party taking the reigns of power in Congress and the President seeking new strategies in conjunction with the review by James Baker's Iraq Study Group, change is coming to the bungled war in...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:15 AM
November 06, 2006
by Paul Jacob As if politics weren't disgusting enough, now comes the Mark Foley scandal. You've no doubt heard the sickening details, which saves me repeating them. What is hurting Republicans isn't one congressman's predatory behavior. It is the lack...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
02:19 PM
November 03, 2006
by Ron Paul By now many Texans have heard about the proposed “NAFTA Superhighway,” which is also referred to as the trans-Texas corridor. What you may not know is the extent to which plans for such a superhighway are moving...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:44 AM
November 02, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris It’s not easy being a weekly columnist. Every week, in order to keep my readers, I must challenge conventional wisdom to a fistfight. Sometimes this means saying the things other people are thinking. Other times, it...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:40 AM
November 01, 2006
By Carl Milsted, Jr. A few years ago I was fairly active in the local Rolling Thunder organization. During that time I got to know many people who favored having more democracy. They meant this in two ways: 1. They...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:48 AM
October 31, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary The trend of ever greater spending for political campaigns continues in the USA. In California, over $500 million is being spent for the November 2006 election, a record high. In 2004, the candidates for president spent...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:41 AM
October 30, 2006
by Paul Jacob Next year, if all goes well, a new sports car hits the market. Not only is it brand new, its brand is new: Tesla Motors. The car itself, the Roadster 100, sounds like a marvel. Touted to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:08 AM
October 27, 2006
by Ron Paul Whenever tax cuts are discussed in Washington, the media and most politicians use the phrase, “cost to government.” “How much will this tax cut cost the government?” we are asked, as though some crime is being contemplated...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:37 AM
October 26, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris I like how there are people in this country who run for office without having any idea why they want to win. Lynn Swann is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Swann is running for governor...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:50 AM
October 25, 2006
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. A couple of weeks ago I received an email inviting people to a reception with Congressman Charles Taylor. To attend, an individual must first contribute at least $500 to Taylor’s campaign -- $1000 for a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:52 AM
October 24, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris The New Orleans Saints have started their season 5-1. Supposedly this is the NFL’s feel-good story of the year. Well, guess what? I don’t feel good for them. I don’t feel good about their record. I...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:04 AM
October 23, 2006
by Paul Jacob The first line of the New York Times article says: "Nine months after Congressional leaders vowed to respond to several bribery scandals with comprehensive reforms, their pledges have come to next to nothing." It seems lawmakers are...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:59 AM
October 20, 2006
by Ron Paul In Washington we hear a lot of talk about tax cuts, but the rhetoric does not always match the reality. For most Americans, taxes remain too complex and too high. After the tumult of the upcoming midterm...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:50 AM
October 18, 2006
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Like clockwork, every April 15th is the time to turn in your tax forms, time to let the IRS know who has been naughty or nice—which means that it’s also time to review the tax...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:04 AM
October 17, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary On August 12, 2006, a letter from the United States Department of the Treasury confirmed that the U.S. government has the legal authority to confiscate gold and silver from U.S. residents and prohibit their possession during...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:11 AM
October 16, 2006
by Paul Jacob Democrats don't like Wal-Mart. Well, not all Democrats. I sure don't think it's just Republicans shopping there. I meant that Democrat politicians don't like Wal-Mart. From Hillary Clinton to Joe Lieberman, they've not only renounced their ties...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:07 AM
October 13, 2006
by Ron Paul During a speech in Washington last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that the coming retirement of the Baby Boomer generation will place tremendous strains on the nation’s budget and economy. He stresses that Social Security...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:07 AM
October 12, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris Dear Utterly Useless Commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission: I’m sorry. I thought we paid you the big bucks to clean up the airwaves—not to sit around, sucking your thumbs all day. In case you haven’t...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:19 AM
October 11, 2006
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Last month the U.S. Department of Aristocracy announced authorization for a total of 9 trillion dollars for the purpose of maintaining a respectable differentiation between rich and poor. Aristocracy Secretary Thurston J. Wilkinson, IV stated...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:27 AM
October 10, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary While U.S. government purchasing media is believed by many to be a governmental monopoly, in fact there are several local currencies which circulate, as well as local exchange trading systems which use the US dollar as...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:25 AM
October 09, 2006
by Paul Jacobs Lobbyists love term limits. Because lobbyists get so much extra power as a result of term limits. Which is why many lobbyists work so hard to dismantle term limits. Wait. Hold on. Something's wrong here. Just because...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:40 AM
October 06, 2006
by Ron Paul A recent article in the Houston Chronicle discusses the problem of so-called anchor babies, children born in U.S. hospitals to illegal immigrant parents. These children automatically become citizens, and thus serve as an anchor for their parents...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:25 AM
October 05, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris A couple of months ago, the State of New Jersey decided its taxes just weren’t high enough. In order to correct this situation, the state introduced a new 7 percent sales tax, which was recently extended...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:21 AM
October 04, 2006
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. How do we improve the lot of the poor? Listen to the far Left and you hear an answer along the lines of dividing up the national income more evenly. The underlying metaphor is that...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:57 AM
October 03, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary You cannot deeply understand economics unless you understand the market dynamics of the Austrian School of economic thought. Commencing with Carl Menger's book Principles of Economics in 1871, the school, originating in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, introduced...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:03 AM
October 02, 2006
by Paul Jacob We're not alone: a whole lot of Americans want more transparency in government. So a bill in the works, sponsored by Senators Tom Coburn and Barack Obama, became popular almost immediately. It would require the federal government...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:49 AM
October 01, 2006
by Richard A. Cheatham, Press Media Group, LLC There’s an extremely dangerous emergency you need to know about, one with the potential of being the most deadly calamity this country has ever dealt with! It seems there’re about 300,000,000 Americas...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:35 AM
September 29, 2006
by Ron Paul No one disputes the diagnosis: American health care is in lousy shape. As a practicing physician for more than 30 years, I find the pervasiveness of managed care very troubling. The problems with our health care system...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:54 AM
September 27, 2006
by Carl S. Milsted, Jr. I am a freedom lover. I hate taxes, paperwork, and standing in lines. When people talk about having more “community” and “democracy” I think of long boring parliamentary gatherings, and having to ask everyone’s permission...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:39 AM
September 26, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary In 1920 a girl was born in the Yukpa village of Kanowapa in the jungles of Venezuela near the border with Colombia. The Yukpa are tribe of Carib Indians, who believe in a Land of the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:02 AM
September 25, 2006
by Paul Gessing There was a time when Democrats stood for smaller government. As time went on, the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan and the “revolutionaries” of 1994 took the small government mantle. In a post-9/11 world, both political parties...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
03:04 PM
by Paul Jacob Freer people are happier people. I'm not sure we need a special study to figure that out, even though happiness is a hard thing to pin down. Sure, in a free society, someone can have great looks...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:51 AM
September 22, 2006
by Ron Paul Last week I spoke about simple steps Congress should take to address the problem of illegal immigration. Simple, however, does not mean easy. While the American people are demanding real immigration reform, many in Washington lack the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:02 AM
September 21, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris Over the summer, Geno’s Steaks in Philly made national headlines when owner Joey Vento posted a sign in his window saying: “This is America. When ordering, speak English.” The whole City of Philadelphia could use the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:08 AM
September 20, 2006
by Carl Milsted, Jr. Fellow extremists, beware of basing your political position too much on one value. It can backfire, leaving you with less of what you want than if you took your opposition’s values into consideration. Politics in the...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:58 AM
September 19, 2006
by Kevin Rollins As we pass by another anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we see the Bush administration and Congress using the occasion to push for new anti-terrorism legislation. These provisions include an after-the-fact approval of the president’s NSA...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:07 AM
by Fred E. Foldvary When payments to government incur no deadweight loss, these are efficient fees. They can take the form of a tax, but in substance, efficient payments are necessarily in exchange for a service or penalties for causing...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:04 AM
September 18, 2006
by Paul Jacob Admittedly, I talk a lot about term limits. I'm a big fan. And the doggoned subject just won't go away. Just the other day I was minding my own business, going to a forum at the Cato...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:14 AM
September 15, 2006
by Ron Paul With the November elections looming, politics is taking priority over sensible policy. It appears congressional leaders have no intention of addressing the issue of illegal immigration this year, preferring not to tackle such a thorny problem for...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:26 AM
September 14, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris I’ve never been comfortable calling 9/11 “9-11.” I’m not sure why this is. I’m not usually big on slash marks. Yet something about the hyphenated version of 9/11 has always bothered me. The only time I...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:40 AM
September 13, 2006
by Carl Milsted, Jr. Environmentalists are concerned about global warming. Conservatives worry about the cost of reducing CO2 emissions. Libertarians grumble about the regulations proposed by many environmentalists. So the debate runs as follows: Many environmentalists exaggerate the near term...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:49 AM
September 11, 2006
by Paul Jacob Some things are just bad, we're told. Like rising prices. Oh, not always. People tend not to complain when their salary goes up. But suppose the price of a widely used good shoots up because of a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
08:10 AM
September 08, 2006
by Ron Paul In recent weeks I've written about the threat of rising property taxes posed by state and local governments hungry for more and more of your money; and the threat of widespread eminent domain actions posed by a...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:52 AM
by Richard A. Cheatham, Press Media Group, LLC With this summer’s hurricane season our Governor recently had occasion to declare a “state of emergency” actuating a recently passed law making “price gouging” illegal. Title 59.1 of the Code of Virginia...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:50 AM
September 07, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris The same day our nation commemorated the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I learned that the state of California had passed—and was now waiting for Governor Schwarzenegger to sign—a new measure legalizing industrial hemp crops....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:57 AM
September 06, 2006
By Carl Milsted, Jr. Liberals want more equality. Conservatives want a better legal climate for doing business. Environmentalists want to save ecosystems and reduce toxins in the environment. Moralists want people to behave better. Libertarians want to reduce taxation, bureaucracy...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:13 AM
September 05, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary Physicists have suspected since the 1930s the existence of stuff they call dark matter, material that is not visible to ordinary observation. Dark matter has great significant effects for the behavior of galaxies and the expansion...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:35 AM
by Paul Jacob NFL Head Coach Nick Saban is too busy to have dinner with the President of the United States. Is this a great country or what? As the Miami Dolphins pre-season training camp got underway, Saban was asked...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:32 AM
September 01, 2006
by Ron Paul Globalists and one-world promoters never seem to tire of coming up with ways to undermine the sovereignty of the United States. The most recent attempt comes in the form of the misnamed "Security and Prosperity Partnership Of...
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05:22 AM
August 30, 2006
By Carl Milsted, Jr. Sometimes you are better off killing someone than scoring some drugs for your friends. At the same time we debate having a database of locations for released child molesters, we have states with “three strikes and...
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06:38 AM
By Chuck Muth In state after state, all across the county, we hear the same, tired refrain from apologists for the government-run education bureaucracy: "Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money!" Indeed in Nevada, where education already eats up more than...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
06:34 AM
August 29, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary Real estate is sold through brokers who earn a commission, which in the U.S.A. has averaged six percent. With rising prices, some brokers offer lower commissions, but many still offer full service at six percent. If...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:45 AM
August 28, 2006
By Paul J. Gessing The simultaneous timing of the unrest in Lebanon and the recent illness of Cuban leader Fidel Castro led me to contemplate the opposite albeit parallel roles that Cuba and Israel have played in American foreign policy...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:20 AM
by Paul Jacob Sometimes Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan administers elections and sometimes she seems hell-bent on preventing them from ever taking place. She's a Democrat, but does she like democracy? Well, she liked it fine when she found...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:16 AM
August 25, 2006
by Ron Paul As a medical doctor, I’ve seen first-hand how bureaucratic red tape interferes with the doctor-patient relationship and drives costs higher. The current system of third-party payers takes decision-making away from doctors, leaving patients feeling rushed and worsening...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
04:54 AM
August 24, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris One of my editors asked me to write a back-to-school column this week. This assignment is difficult for two important reasons: 1. To me, back-to-school means buying school supplies. Unfortunately, I know little about that process....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:16 AM
August 23, 2006
by Carl Milsted, Jr. In my previous column I listed the many merits of replacing a huge array of tax exemptions and welfare programs with a citizens’ dividend; that is, simply have the government send every U.S. citizen a monthly...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:57 AM
August 22, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary "The last unregulated human behavior is sneezing!" exclaimed the president's Doctor in Chief. "Sneezing is a leading cause of disease, including the flu. Sneezes need to be regulated, just as we regulate drugs, guns, and pollution....
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
05:44 AM
August 21, 2006
by Paul Jacob More people should be informed about the issues and candidates, and then vote intelligently. Agree? Okay. So let's start bribing people to show up at the polls. Wait. Not so fast. Aren't we already bribing people to...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
07:14 AM
August 18, 2006
by Ron Paul Each year the people of the United States write a check to subsidize China, one of the most brutal, anti-American regimes in the world. Lately it has been in vogue for everyone in Washington to eagerly denounce...
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07:11 AM
August 17, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris A guy I know told me the other day he doesn’t plan on seeing Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center. When I asked him why, he told me he doesn’t feel the need to “relive” September 11th....
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05:45 AM
August 16, 2006
By Carl Milsted, Jr. Illegal immigration, job outsourcing, trade deficits, budget deficits, workers in poverty, the welfare trap, an insanely complicated tax code… What do all these problems have in common? The answer: They could all be substantially fixed by...
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05:00 AM
August 15, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary On Saturday, August 19, 2006, the Civil Society Institute at Santa Clara University in California will host an international conference on Authority and Autonomy in the Family. Topics include education, critical thinking for children, and the...
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06:19 AM
August 14, 2006
by Paul Jacob We're going to find out who among our congressmen is being naughty, who nice. Or, we will -- if Senator Tom Coburn has his way. Oddly, many of his colleagues don't seem to want to hop on...
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04:26 AM
August 12, 2006
By Matthew Bandyk The old saying is that “honesty is the best policy.” Even people with intentions to mislead recognize the usefulness of honesty. That’s why they will go to great lengths to not technically “lie,” yet still give a...
Posted by KevinRollins at
06:10 PM
August 11, 2006
by Ron Paul In recent weeks I’ve written about how inflation is alive and well, especially when it comes to the cost of housing, energy, gas, and education. But perhaps the most worrisome type of inflation comes in the form...
Posted by RobertCapozzi at
09:45 AM
August 10, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris I can’t take it anymore. Enough with the whining. Stop it with the hypocrisy. A couple of weeks ago, Floyd Landis was an ex-Mennonite turned Tour de France hero. People were calling him the new face...
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08:39 AM
August 09, 2006
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Democracy is rule by the people. Right? So why isn’t everyone in favor of democracy? Why do dictatorships thrive? Why do so many people resort to civil war and/or terror? The answer: the first sentence...
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06:02 AM
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August 08, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary Montenegro became the 192nd member of the United Nations on June 28, 2006. The country, Crna Gora in the Montenegrin language, became an independent state on June 3, after a vote in favor of independence in...
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07:22 AM
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August 07, 2006
by Paul Jacob I have only the faintest glimmer of how Google.com makes money. (I think it has something to do with ads.) But the business reports tell us that Google's sales just came in at $2.46 billion, up 77...
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06:55 AM
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August 04, 2006
by Ron Paul Gasoline prices are soaring and the American people are angry. They want something done about it—now! $100 rebate checks to American motorists won’t cut it, nor will mandatory mileage requirements for new vehicles. Taxing oil profits will...
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05:25 AM
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August 03, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris A couple of months ago, I wore a fake Hitler mustache under my nose at a large social gathering. I learned two things that afternoon. One, that I actually look pretty good in a Hitler mustache....
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01:12 PM
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August 02, 2006
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Once upon a time, founders of what would become the United States of America fired “the shot heard around the world.” Our nation became the inspiration for many revolutionary movements. Today, the United States is...
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05:07 AM
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August 01, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation to increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over three years. The bill, now being considered in the Senate, is linked to other issues, but here...
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10:04 AM
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July 28, 2006
by Ron Paul Five years ago, I wrote about threats made by the Internal Revenue Service against conservative churches for supposedly engaging in politicking. Today, the IRS is again attempting to chill free speech, sending notices to more than 15,000...
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08:59 AM
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July 27, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris China and Russia are big countries. When world leaders met at the recent G8 summit, President Bush was caught cursing, chewing like a cow, and massaging the shoulders of Germany’s female chancellor on camera. He was...
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08:16 AM
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July 26, 2006
By Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Deficit spending is a subsidy to those who have money to lend; i.e., the rich. Now we come to the trillion dollar question: how do we get rid of the deficit and start paying down...
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07:22 AM
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July 25, 2006
A Confederation of Jaffa with Equal Rights to the Land by Fred E. Foldvary With the State of Israel at war once again with Arabs, this time with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, it is time to revisit...
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07:03 AM
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July 24, 2006
by Paul Jacob The Republican Party has completely failed to reduce federal spending. It hasn't even controlled growth. It has done the opposite. It has sent spending through the roof. Further, its basic strategy, "starving government" by cutting taxes, has...
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07:59 AM
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July 20, 2006
by Ron Paul All government spending represents a tax. The inflation tax, while largely ignored, hurts middle-class and low-income Americans the most. Simply put, printing money to pay for federal spending dilutes the value of the dollar, which causes higher...
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07:27 AM
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July 19, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris It’s funny how many people seem to think the burgeoning war between Israel and Lebanon is the start of World War III. Maybe “funny” isn’t the right word to use here. Hezbollah decided to play Milk...
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05:59 AM
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July 18, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary The Principality of Liechtenstein celebrated its 200th year on July 12, 2006. Located between Switzerland and Austria by the Rhine River, the principality was established within the Holy Roman Empire in 1719. Napoleon forced the emperor...
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06:30 AM
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July 17, 2006
by Paul Jacob How do we gain control of government spending, especially when our politicians work so hard against us? Take control ourselves. This spring and summer, citizens across America have rallied to put Stop OverSpending measures on the ballots...
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07:24 AM
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July 14, 2006
by Ron Paul For years officials at the Federal Reserve Bank, including Chairman Bernanke himself, have assured us that inflation is under control and not a problem-- even as the price of housing, energy, medical care, school tuition, gold, and...
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06:46 AM
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July 13, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris Last week, my wife and parents and brother and I all traveled to Las Vegas for the first time in our lives. It was a rather unusual vacation. I explained what happened to one of my...
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07:01 AM
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July 12, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary With hubris and conceit towards history and economics, the Chiefs of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have enacted socialized medicine. As of April 12, 2006, the state enacted a law requiring every resident to have medical insurance...
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08:02 AM
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July 10, 2006
by Paul Jacob Sometimes it's the people with the best intentions who spread the wildest rumors. There's a movement gaining strength around the world, especially in Europe and Africa, to ban forever genetically engineered foods. For at least five years...
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06:35 AM
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July 09, 2006
by Lady Liberty I like to read, and I also like to watch movies. Because I like doing both of those things so much, I'm happy to encourage others to enjoy them, too. I have a lot (okay, I have...
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07:53 AM
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July 07, 2006
by Ron Paul On the fourth day of July, in 1776, a small group of men, representing 13 colonies in the far-off Americas, boldly told the most powerful nation on earth that they were free. They declared, in terms that...
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07:12 AM
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by Jonathan David Morris GENO’S STEAKS (PHILA., PA) - TUES., JULY 4, 2006 Thomas Jefferson: Hey, Madison. Check it out. Only one more guy ahead of us, and we will finally be able to sink our wooden teeth into genuine...
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07:10 AM
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July 06, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary With many Americans, and indeed folks around the world, disgusted and outraged by the corruption and arrogance of the current U.S. chiefs and their warfare state, many are turning again to a new third political party....
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06:20 AM
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July 05, 2006
by Paul Jacob The CNN headline boldly proclaimed that a Florida "Report faults repeal of motorcycle helmet law." CNN stated that "'Unhelmeted' deaths have soared in Florida." From CNN we learn that "a Florida Today analysis of federal motorcycle crash...
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08:51 AM
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July 03, 2006
Reform Caucus Finds Huge Victory at Libertarian Convention (Portland, OR) In a dramatic weekend at the Libertarian Party National Convention in Portland, OR, Libertarian Reform Caucus (LRC) members worked to substantially alter the party platform. The Libertarian Party (LP) is...
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11:48 PM
June 29, 2006
by Ron Paul The United Nations is holding a conference beginning this week in New York that ironically coincides with our national 4th of July holiday. It’s ironic because those attending the conference want to do away with one of...
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07:09 AM
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June 28, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris Do you honk? Do you changes lanes? Do you ever have visions of getting to where you’re going while behind the wheel of a moving motor vehicle? If so, you may be one of a growing...
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06:23 AM
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June 27, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary Most tax reformers of the land-tapping persuasion believe that how soever beneficial would be the termination of punitive taxes on human affairs, and the replacement of public revenue from the economic surplus that is rent, nevertheless...
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07:06 AM
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June 26, 2006
by Paul Jacob Around the world, nearly two million children die of diarhhea each year. It would be nice if somebody did something about this, eh? Send in Peace Corps, Doctors Without Borders, the Marines! But somebody is doing something...
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07:22 AM
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June 22, 2006
by Ron Paul Let me ask you a question: Do you think you pay enough taxes? Throughout the year you paid federal taxes through withholding, including Social Security payroll taxes. You also paid state income taxes, unless you’re fortunate enough...
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06:55 AM
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June 21, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris Former beard wearer and popular vote winner Al Gore has a new movie out this month called An Inconvenient Truth. In it, he makes the case that humans have but ten years to reverse course and...
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05:54 AM
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June 20, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary If a country switches to an ideal fiscal and regulatory policy, would monetary policy still matter? Yes it would. To have a maximally prosperous economy and eliminate depressions, we also need to attend to money and...
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06:36 AM
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June 19, 2006
by Paul Jacob The FDA recently came out with a study that said no other sound studies show marijuana to be medically valuable. Some scientists have drawn in a big breath after hearing the FDA's bald assertion. They're holding in...
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05:59 AM
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June 15, 2006
by Ron Paul The U.S. Senate had a golden opportunity to repeal the federal estate tax last week, but fell a few votes short. I fear that vote might represent the high-water mark in the movement to get rid of...
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08:12 AM
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June 14, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris America is a strange country. Last week, the U.S. military ended the life of one Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a high-profile terrorist leader who had been wreaking relative havoc both on Iraq as well as my MS...
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07:40 AM
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June 13, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary The Great Ape Project, based in a Seattle, Washington, has campaigned for a "community of equals" in which all the great apes would have the legal rights to life, freedom, and protection from torture. Now the...
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05:29 AM
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June 12, 2006
by Paul Jacob A man's life hangs in the balance. Whose judgment do you trust, twelve duly appointed jurors or one lone blogger? Normally, I'd say "the jury," but the facts in the case of Mr. Cory Maye has me...
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07:19 AM
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June 08, 2006
by Ron Paul This week, Congress will vote to send more than 20 billion of your hard-earned dollars overseas, when it passes the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill for 2007. Our annual foreign aid bill is one of the most egregious...
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06:22 AM
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June 07, 2006
by Jonathan David Morris Two and a half years ago, I wrote a column called “So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish,” in which I came out against the Iraq War before war supporters coming out against the Iraq...
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06:44 AM
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June 06, 2006
by Fred E. Foldvary The big development in real estate now is the creation of financial derivatives in real estate. Direct