An Essential Resource for Enlightened Minds Since 1972
For some years now, Swiss Banks have not been willing to take on U.S. clients because of the aggressive tactics of the U.S. IRS. Since they hauled UBS over the coals for harboring U.S. tax evaders and continue to investigate many Swiss Banks, the IRS has posed a threat to Swiss companies operating in the… read more
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It’s Istanbul, not Constantinople, as the song goes. In this history is an omen for any powerful state (read: the U.S.). A somewhat obscure essayist knew all about it back in 1959. His little book deserves wider circulation. Below, we’ll take a look. Constantinople was once the seat of a vast, rich empire. The successor… read more
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Illegal immigrants will flood in! You will be stuck in security lines for hours! Children will go hungry! Planes will fall from the sky! No, this isn’t a recap of the nightmare scenarios concocted by Y2K maniacs some 13 years ago. Instead, this is what the White House itself has said about puny and largely… read more
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“My inflation record is the best of any Federal Reserve chairman in the postwar period,” said the great bearded one, a bit annoyed, responding to a question by Sen. Bob Corker. “We are not engaged in a currency war.” Ben Bernanke told lawmakers to forget that helicopter stuff they’ve been hearing about him, he’s the… read more
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What’s called the “music industry” — which really means the big players in recording and performance — just climbed over the mountain. Global sales rose last year for the first time since 1999. That’s 14 years of hell ending with just a glimmer of light on the horizon. Still, everyone is celebrating the change. And… read more
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The publication earlier this week of the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee minutes of Jan. 29-30 seemed to have a similar effect on equity markets as a call from room service to a Las Vegas hotel suite, informing the partying high rollers that the hotel might be running out of Cristal Champagne. Around the… read more
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In 2004, Maurice Underwood was just a man with a van. When he made the decision to start his own moving company, Underwood was running an established small business in Reno, Nev., providing home cleaning services. A moving business was a natural next step, he thought, after he noticed several of his clients inquiring about… read more
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I leave Liberty Forum in New Hampshire, a three-day gathering of hundreds of people who are trying to find ways of living freer lives in times of despotic control. With me I have three types of nonpaper, nongovernmental monies. They all operate in competition with the government’s dollar. These include Bitcoin, the mind-blowing digital currency that has techno-geeks, edgy global traders, and even the World Bank buzzing about its potential to finally separate money from the state. … read more
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John Goedde, chairman of the Idaho Senate’s Education Committee, introduced legislation a couple weeks ago that would require every Idaho high school student to read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and pass a test on it to graduate from high school. Why Atlas Shrugged? Goedde told a colleague that reading the book made his son a… read more
Read More CommentA few weeks ago in the Land of the Free, a five-year-old girl in Pennsylvania was labeled a terrorist threat. Fortunately for the citizens of Northumberland County, local authorities managed to detain this nefarious kindergartener before she could exact her villainous deeds on thousands of innocents. Authorities were tipped off after someone overheard a conversation… read more
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One of the most dangerous threats to liberty and privacy today is called the “Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act,” or CISPA. The activists slayed this monster last year. Or so it seemed. But of course, the beast didn’t die. Some powerful members of Congress are pushing it again. CISPA would allow government to force… read more
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Decent folk don’t need Dick Cheney to describe something as “a good policy” to know it’s probably a bad idea. But just in case they missed the point the first time around, the former VP was on television last week to hammer it home for them. In an interview with CBS This Morning, Cheney brushed… read more
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There are certain sounds that tend to make people crazy. Think of nails on a chalkboard. An infant screaming nonstop on a long flight. A piercing whistle that won’t go away. Now we need to add another: a U.S. president who thinks he can legislate high wages into law. For anyone who knows the basics… read more
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Drones are wildly popular on the battlefield. Now they can claim victory elsewhere. The use of drones within U.S. borders — in car chases, to monitor wildfires, or for simple surveillance — is uniting political parties and people more often at odds. Their concern: The widespread use of drones among civilians represents a deep and… read more
Read More CommentThe topic of drones came up on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Advertising guru and pro-drone Donny Deutsch pushed back against a skeptical Joe Scarborough saying, “What’s the big deal? There was no due process at Waco.” It’s just a difference in technology, he said. “It’s a more advanced way of dealing with problems,” Deutsch contended with… read more
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Imagine a time when the government knew nothing about the money in your bank. It cared nothing about how much you made, where you made it, and what you did with it. You could take your earnings in gold, silver, paper, or anything else, and never filed a sheet with the government. How you earned… read more
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“This used to be a hell of a good country, I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.” said George Hanson in the movie “Easy Rider.” My old friend Joe Sobran (1946-2010) loved that line and quoted it often. Sobran, who worked alongside William Buckley at National Review during its heyday, was one of the… read more
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We’ve been telling anyone who will listen that the Fed has gone where the central bank has never gone before. Pre-crisis, the Fed’s available resource looked like it always had in the postwar period. Nearly overnight, thanks to its magical money creating powers of buying debt with funds it created, the Fed’s balance sheet shot… read more
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What is the best single thing you can do for your children? Send them to Asia for school so they can get a good education and learn Mandarin. Or so says a thinker and investor Jim Rogers. Some investors achieve the status of being legends, their opinions on all matters of economics and politics sought… read more
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I was standing outside the hotel when a gigantic bus rolled up. It was a double-decker and seemed as long as a city block. One hundred-plus people poured out. Once empty, the bus drove on. I stood there right in the path of the exhaust fumes. It was a cloud of gray, bellowing like a… read more
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Colleges are good at getting people enrolled. They get kids lined up with education loans. The money goes to pay exorbitant prices on textbooks. It pays for meal cards. Tuition is crazy high. Parents go along and shell out until their bank accounts are barren. What colleges are not good at is getting the kids… read more
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For those schooled in economics, the gasoline shortage during Hurricane Sandy last November was no surprise. Demand for gas goes up. Supply lines are disrupted. It’s the old supply-and-demand thing. The price goes up. Higher prices attract new supplies from unconventional paths. Prices respond and fall back again. The market handles it just fine. All… read more
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Most people today use technologies without a clue to the larger picture of what is really happening to the structure of the world because of them. People are staring at the trees and not noticing the gigantic, growing, and ever expanding forest, much less considering the meaning of it all. This is an attempt to… read more
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“Then they pop up and say, ‘Hello, surprise! Give us your money or we will shut you down!’ Screw them. Seriously, screw them. You can quote me on that.” Those are the words of Newegg.com’s chief legal officer, Lee Cheng. He was speaking to Arstechnica.com following a landmark ruling that sided with a great business… read more
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For his U.S. economic history class at UNLV, Murray Rothbard gave us the assignment to write a 10-page paper. The paper could be on anything we wanted it to be. However, we had to clear the topic with him. When I proposed writing about the Great Depression, Murray was thrilled and rattled off a number… read more
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In 1881, Dakota Territory had never sold a bushel of wheat to anybody outside of Dakota. Six years later, it sold 62 million bushels. What happened? I recently read Garet Garrett’s The American Story, which came out in 1955. It is a well-written history of America, unusual because of its emphasis on the powerful economics… read more
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You remember when Hostess declared bankruptcy last November? There were outcries that the iconic snack pastry would be gone forever. Speculators began to stockpile the tasty treats. As Zero Hedge documented, eBay featured the following items: For a price of $89.95, three boxes of SEALED Box of Hostess Chocodiles 3×10 Chocolate Twinkies For a price… read more
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THE GREAT ECONOMIC journalist Henry Hazlitt read Philip Wicksteed’s The Common Sense of Political Economy during the formative period of self-study as an economist and social thinker. He serendipitously picked the book up from the Flatbush, Brooklyn, branch of the New York Public Library as he was attempting to learn more economics to help him… read more
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For young people facing terrible job prospects and a generally bad economic environment going forward, starting a business sounds very appealing. It has advantages over embedding yourself in a big institution, taking your wages in forms of benefits, and hoping (against hope) to climb the ladder. It’s never been easier to strike out on your… read more
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There’s a jewelry store in town with a long tradition, a devoted client list, and a good record of solid profitability. But during the last year, it’s moved around like the “oldest established permanently floating crap game” from the musical Guys and Dolls. It was downtown. Then it was not. It was reestablished on the… read more
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