An Essential Resource for Enlightened Minds Since 1972
My inbox has been slammed with notes concerning the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. Given the accessibility of information, and the pace at which it travels, people have treated this event as not just a case of a ghastly local crime, but much more than that, a signal and a wake-up call… read more
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An old banking buddy of mine has been out of work for a full year. I met up with him yesterday, and he told me the good news that he has finally found work. It’s not enjoyable. But it pays better than sitting at home. His time of unemployment had been doubly tough because his… read more
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Ben Bernanke began his press conference with a touching tribute to the unemployed. Oh, how he cares! And so deeply! His description of the problem was accurate enough. But then out came the smoke and mirrors. Bernanke said that to remedy the unemployment problem, he will continue the Fed’s program of asset purchases. Specifically, the… read more
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Imagine you have a friend who is completely unfamiliar with economics. Imagine further that he says he is going to read exactly 99 pages of economics and no more. What would you suggest that he read? I submit that Faustino Ballve’s Essentials of Economics: A Brief Survey of Principles and Policies would be an excellent… read more
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Google bought YouTube in 2006 at the height of the infringement hysteria. The new owners got busy trying to get the platform up to legal standards and avoid billions in pending lawsuits. It seems that users had been posting a vast amount of copyrighted material, and Google was going to be held liable. Over the… read more
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Times are tough on Main Street. Still, cheap money flows to the top 1%, wherever they live. For example, the fall season for the art market has been solid. Foreign buyers can’t get enough unique pieces for their collections. The auction house Sotheby’s had its best night ever on Nov. 14, racking up $375 million… read more
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The cultural elite routinely disdain reality TV as voyeuristic garbage being churned out for the unwashed masses. But this unwashed woman is a fan of a new subgenre of the category that has become a sensation: reality capitalism. That’s not what the subgenre calls itself, of course, but that’s what it amounts to. A flood… read more
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People talk like capitalism is some strange foreign invader, a mechanical system that was imposed on the world a couple hundred years ago, fueled by burning coal and emitting smoke, and certainly not anything organic to the social order. This is preposterous. The Christmas story that surrounds us in this season, told millions of times… read more
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How secure are property rights if the police can take your stuff and keep it, citing no particular reason at all? Not very secure. This is the way police work in the developing world. Of course, this practice is increasingly common in the U.S. too. Municipalities around the nation are battling to stay afloat, and… read more
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Half of Americans think that government is their benefactor. The other half think it is a sworn enemy. Depending on the day and the issue, they can and do switch sides. These hydraulics are at work in the never-ending arguments about taxes, medical care, marijuana, education, war — you name it. This is how government… read more
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In the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, the American rich walked tall. They dressed the part. Top hats, canes, tails, spats, you name it. They built glorious mansions for all the world to see. They traveled in style, and did so publicly. They were profiled in popular magazines. Indeed, they were idolized and… read more
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‘Tis the season to be jolly. But then there’s the TSA. No government agency inspires “Bah Humbug” like the Transportation Safety Administration. For those who travel, the agency is 65,000 employees dressed in blue to make airline travel as annoying as possible. Last week the House Aviation Subcommittee held a hearing to discuss common sense… read more
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The antique car, specially ordered for the occasion, was waiting for the bride and groom to take them to the party after the wedding. I was among the guests who were more enraptured by the car than by the main event. Absolutely stunning. It was a Studebaker. At best I can tell, it was a… read more
Read More CommentObama has been too quiet lately. And when he does speak, he says little of substance. For example, on the looming fiscal cliff that has America panicked, he held a press conference on Nov. 28 to urge people to tweet Congress. The only hard policy statement included was a reiteration of his well-worn proposal to… read more
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I’m not a bettin’ man, probably because I’ve lost every time I’ve tried it. Still, I benefit from those who do. We all do. Betting odds give us information about what others believe, same as stock and bonds prices. And this collected knowledge, backed by real property, tells us more about the real world than… read more
Read More CommentMemories are short, and 2008 is ancient history. Consumers can’t suppress their urge to consume. Lenders can’t suppress their urge to lend. We’ve learned nothing from the last boom-bust. We are repeating it, piling error upon error. “People will spend more of their equity,” Chris Christopher, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass.,… read more
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To be sure, this was a mind-bending experience. I watched Steven Spielberg’s movie Lincoln on the same weekend that I read Joseph Fallon’s Lincoln Uncensored, the e-book of the week released by the Laissez Faire Club. Worlds collided. Fallon’s book, which is brilliant and the most useful Lincoln book I’ve read, sticks to the facts… read more
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We are still in the early stages of a literature revolution, a migration from physical to digital, and it is tremendously exciting to see the number of options that have become available. I still remember when, not too many years ago, people were saying that computers would destroy books and therefore authors and therefore the… read more
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Winter is upon us, and that means digging out of our closets a whole variety of different kinds of shoes. There are insulated hiking boots, trail shoes, specialized hunting boots, waterproof shoes, and more. Ah, the wonderful varieties provided for us by the marketplace! Thank goodness government never did to shoes what it has done… read more
Read More CommentMost of America has suffered since the crash of 2007. Property values plummeted, unemployment soared and remained stubbornly high, the use of food stamps continues to set records. Pension plans are going broke and municipalities around the country are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. All this five full years after the crash. A federal… read more
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The unemployment rate for 19-24 year olds hasn’t moved much since 2008, and the reality of the tight job market has fully dawned on the young people I’ve spoken with about this. They know that odds are against them and that it takes extra effort to make a go of it following college graduation. They… read more
Read More CommentTwo news items stress the necessity of hoarding and of doing it now. A Nov. 5 headline on NBC Connecticut announced “N.Y. Man Charged in Gas Hoarding Case” and addressed an incident from the flood zone. “According to investigators, Yunus Latif… collected money from his neighbors, bought gas at a Valero station almost 80 miles… read more
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“Half of the nation’s 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders have announced plans to curtail capital expenditures this year or next.” This is The Wall Street Journal further confirming the mounting evidence that the presidential election did not cure what is fundamentally sick. The supposed recovery of the last two years is the least convincing… read more
Read More CommentOh how everyone (of a certain class and income) makes fun of the Twinkie, the ultimate symbol of modern food decadence and phoniness. I don’t get it. Have the critics ever tried one? They are so appealing and delicious: light, spongy, sweet, and creamy, all in a tiny package. The news that the parent company… read more
Read More CommentThe Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress is the least governmentlike building among all the tax-funded monstrosities in the nation’s capital. It was completed in 1897, at the tail end of the greatest period of economic growth in the history of humanity in what was then the world’s most prosperous country, just before… read more
Read More CommentI was out shopping for a new winter coat, hopping from store to store looking for a good deal. To my astonishment, it was almost impossible not to find a good deal. Coats of a quality that once cost hundreds of dollars were everywhere, with prices ranging from $65-150. I’m sure I could have found… read more
Read More CommentAll government-directed economic activity grows at the expense of the private sector. And the election suggests that government coercion will drive even more U.S. economic activity in the future. This is a shame, because freely adjusting prices, competition, and innovation elevate living standards. Mandates, price controls, and subsidies — coercive actions — depress living standards.… read more
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People often say of a weak candidate, “He couldn’t get elected dogcatcher.” But actually, this isn’t a sensible criticism at all. If someone were actually running for dogcatcher, I would want to know his previous experience in catching dogs. This is a demonstrable, objective skill that someone either has or does not have. I certainly… read more
Read More CommentMany people complain about government control of currency, but only a few do something about it. I’m not talking about movements to “audit the Fed” and such. I’m talking about real innovation that makes an end run around the government’s iron grip on the monetary system. A few of us old folks might like to… read more
Read More CommentOr do and don’t do as the case may be. My talk from the Property and Freedom Society conference in Bodrum, Turkey.… read more
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