There’s an old saying that “he who distinguishes well teaches well.” In other words, if one’s going to talk about an important subject, one should be able to define his terms and tell the difference between two things that are not the same. This wisdom, unfortunately, is rarely embraced by modern pundits arguing about the
MoreIn a typical illustration of how the news media resorts to exaggeration and hyperbole in order to seem relevant, the national media promised us “chaos” and a traffic “nightmare” in cities and towns where a total eclipse could be viewed yesterday. A month ago, USAToday suggested that too many hikers and forest-fire danger “could cause
MoreIf I were to draw up a list of the problems facing my country, and then to discuss their nature and possible solutions, I might be starting work on a rather long book. Instead, I will confine myself to what I think are the two most immediately pressing, and that are within the direct control
MoreThe partial legalization of marijuana has not been particularly ideal. Thanks to high regulatory burdens on the marijuana-production industry, limitations on production volume, and high taxes, black markets have persisted within those states that have adopted a variety of legalization measures. Perhaps most burdensome has been ongoing federal banking regulations that essentially prohibit marijuana producers
MoreIn a previous article, I wrote about how the war on drugs and the government monopoly on the legal system has created the Tragedy of the Commons in our justice system. Because legislators and police officers have every incentive to appear “tough on crime” but the cost of the sending a criminal to a courtroom
MoreNow that House and Senate Republicans have released health care bills, I have come to one conclusion: the GOP is in need of major help writing a health care bill. They never seem to get it right, and they always fall short of making these bills conservative. Consequently, I have created a guideline that highlights
MoreSpeaking in London, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen predicted recently that the “the system is much safer and much sounder” and explained that the Federal Reserve is prepared to deal with numerous enormous shocks to the economy. In her conversation with Lord Nicholas Stern, Yellen also went on to list the reasons that, thanks to
MoreIn 1966, Milton Friedman wrote an op-ed for Newsweek entitled “Minimum Wage Rates.” In it, he argued “that the minimum-wage law is the most anti-Negro law on our statute books.” He was, of course, referring to the then-present era, after the far more explicitly racist laws from the eras of slavery and segregation had already
MoreDerek Carr has just signed the most lucrative deal in NFL history, receiving a five-year extension worth $125 million with the soon-to-be Las Vegas Raiders. At $25 million per year, Carr edges out Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck (though Luck’s contract did reward him with over twice as much in guaranteed money). Carr also becomes
MoreNew players are now on the scene in Texas politics. The Texas Freedom Caucus, founded by members of the Texas House of Representatives dedicated to carrying out the will of liberty-minded Texans, is beginning to flex its muscles in the Texas State legislature. Texas Freedom Caucus members, led by pro-gun champion Jonathan Stickland, recently made
MoreHis original intent was to eliminate the H-1B visa program. However, upon meeting with corporate executives during his campaign, President Trump changed course, deciding the H-1B visa program didn’t need to be eliminated but reformed. Trump signed an executive order entitled “Buy American – Hire American”, designed to make it harder for U.S. companies to
MoreA few days ago I had the opportunity to participate in a brief discussion on the subject of healthcare, more precisely, whether it is a right or a privilege. The person I was talking with is one of those who frames the debate in terms of a false dilemma: healthcare is either a right or
MoreDo you have federal student loans? I do and, if you are anything like me, it sucks. Regardless of being on the receiving end of a loan, the program administered by the U.S. Department of Education is clearly flawed. In fact, one can easily make an argument claiming that because of widespread borrowing, the student loan
MoreYou’re probably scratching your head right about now, aren’t you? Well, let me take a few minutes to explain to you the level of importance the following case carries for the larger narrative of governmental overreach and over-regulation. No, it is not a federal agency defying the new administration. Better yet, it takes place at
MoreToo often, the realm of environmental policy has gone down unforgiving roads. In terms of regulating industry being one of those many roads, the devil in the details become exposed. At this point, a Pandora’s box of nonsensical regulation envelopes the free marketplace with unrealistic standards that limit and restrict growth for an economy. Upon
MoreOn Thursday, the Missouri State Legislature passed right to work legislation, sending it to the desk of Governor Eric Greitens. Should Greitens sign the bill, Missouri would become the 28th right to work state. Right to work laws are becoming more and more popular among conservatives and have spread to many new states in recent
MorePresident Trump met Tuesday with the heads of several pharmaceutical companies at the White House. During the Oval Office meeting, Trump discussed bringing more pharmaceutical jobs back to the U.S. and making drugs more affordable. He urged the drug companies, which included Johnson and Johnson, to bring more jobs back to America, saying, “So you
More‘This Congress is going to be the busiest Congress in decades — maybe ever.’’ With these words, President Donald Trump urged fellow Republicans in Congress to help him halt illegal immigration by supporting his plan to build a United States-Mexico border wall. But a wall that isn’t erected by the private land owners bordering Mexican
MoreFixing the outsourcing epidemic requires looking to treat the cause, not the symptom. The case for free trade is simple. Businesses should be able to locate where they want and import what they want. International free market activity is fundamentally parallel to that which occurs within U.S. borders. Thus, when everyone is doing what they
More“They’re going to have to pay a border tax — a substantial border tax,” President Trump pledged Monday morning during a White House meeting with twelve CEOs including the heads of Dow Chemical, Proctor and Gamble, and Ford. He went on to thinly veil threats against the businessmen, saying, “All you have to do is
MoreOn Saturday, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Washington D.C. to express their disdain for the live incarnation of sexism, President Donald J. Trump himself, and the misogynist patriarchy during the Women’s March on Washington. Throughout the 2016 election cycle, massive and unprecedented rioting and protesting has taken place at Trump
MoreUnless you’re Bill Belichick, you may have heard a thing or two about the impending repeal of The Affordable Care Act on Snapface or Instachat. Actually, you’ve probably heard quite a lot. From Esquire stating 30 million people lost their healthcare overnight, to countless pithy tweets and Facebook quotes about the evils of the Republicans for wanting
MoreIn the marijuana legalization debate, two talking points are often utilized: taxation and regulation. These are good arguments from a liberal perspective, but quite problematic in a conservative or libertarian context. The basis for justifying the legalization of marijuana is simple. Consenting adults should be allowed to choose what to put in their bodies, whether
MoreOn Monday night, “Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe joined Tucker Carlson on Fox News to discuss Ford’s and Chrysler’s respective plans to reinvest in U.S. manufacturing. Rowe, who is a proponent of technical and skilled jobs, told Carlson, “Get a skill that’s in demand, that’s really in demand, that can’t be outsourced. Plumbers, steamfitters, pipefitters,
MoreThe hypocritical liberals are sounding the alarms about Jeff Sessions being President Trump’s pick for Attorney General. Suddenly and conveniently, they care about civil liberties and the rule of law again now that they have lost political power. Nevertheless, they are blowing smoke and relying on ignorance to push their tired agenda. The George Soros-funded
MoreThe election of President-elect Donald Trump last month has awakened, what some people are calling, the “animal spirits” of capitalism. Anyone with a 401k or money in the stock market could tell you that things are going very well at the moment. The election of President-elect Trump and conservative, pro-market Republican majorities in the House
MoreWould you like to know my secret to turning my environmentalist friends into stalwart defenders of the marketplace? The answer is simple: coal. You would be amazed by the reversal in rhetoric witnessed right before your eyes, typically accompanied by a big dose of schadenfreude aimed at Appalachian people. The “free market killed coal” adage
MoreEarlier this week, shockwaves were sent through the liberty movement. At age 86, Thomas Sowell, one of the most gifted and influential libertarian economists of our lifetime, announced that he is finally putting the brakes on his weekly column. This came as sad news to many. Over the past 25 years, Sowell has guided countless
MoreThe latest jobs report is out for November 2016 and the media is in a frenzy over the fact that the unemployment rate has fallen to a nine year low at 4.6%. However, as anyone who has a passing familiarity with the voodoo science of statistics will tell you, numbers can be made to dance
MoreIn Principles of Economics, Carl Menger corrected the theoretical mistakes made by the old classical school. At the time, the founder of the Austrian School of economics seemed to want to make economics accessible to everyday people, which may explain why he exemplified the nature of economic value in his book, making sure readers understood
MoreLast week, President-elect Donald J. Trump and his administration reached a deal with United Technologies, holding company of the air conditioner and appliance manufacturer Carrier, to keep around 1,000 jobs in the United States. Trump has promised on the campaign trail that he would keep those jobs on US soil since Carrier first announced that
MoreWhether you like it or not, the cannabis revolution is underway throughout America. Four states have already legalized marijuana for recreational purposes, and four more states are slated to join them after the results of last month’s election. On Nov. 8, the big winner wasn’t Donald Trump – it was the cannabis plant. It reigned
MoreIn his far-reaching effort, known as “A Better Way”, to define a coherent, conservative legislative agenda, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan brought together the talent and put in the time to chart a path forward in the War on Poverty. For too long, conservatives have allowed the War on Poverty to be waged by
MoreThe crisis in Venezuela is the most modern illustration of the horrific consequences of socialism and the devastating reality of hyperinflation. What makes this disaster all the more infuriating is that it could have been avoided with a basic understanding of history. We’ve seen the disaster of socialism and interventionism in various forms play out
MoreDonald Trump hasn’t yet made the move from Trump Tower to America’s most expensive public housing, but he was able to come through with one campaign promise this week by announcing a deal with Indiana-based Carrier Air Conditioning that will keep almost 1,000 jobs in the state. As reported, the deal seems largely focused on
MoreA large part of Donald Trump’s stunning upset against Hillary Clinton was the rise of the working class American who has long been left behind by the political elite. Overbearing regulations and high taxation drive good jobs out of the country, where businesses can get the job done for cheaper. Now that the controversial Republican
MoreAmid a torrent of rumors surrounding the allegedly chaotic Trump transition, there have been some glimmers of hope emerging from the fledgling ascendance of the Manhattanite billionaire to the halls of power in Washington, DC. Vice President-elect, Mike Pence, has taken the reins of the transition process and his first order of business was to
MoreOne difficult aspect of living as a libertarian in a less-than-free society is that we cannot describe to our opponents with absolute certainty how a genuinely free market would look. We are left to rely on thought experiments and the examples of existing businesses models to compare to the State. If I want to discuss
MoreThe 1760’s called, they want their economic policy back. Am I the only one who’s a little tired of both major party platforms scraping the bottom of the barrel for economic theories that’ve been disproven since before we were born? I’m a libertarian. A deep, cynical, state-is-obsolete libertarian who finds his views overlapping heavily with
MoreFriedrich August von Hayek published The Use of Knowledge in Society in the American Economic Review in 1945. With the world turning towards central economic controls, Hayek set out to describe what he called “the problem of a rational economic order.” Hayek’s emphasis here is how a system of economic order is to overcome the
MoreTo those who say that Trump is going to lose this election: conventional wisdom agrees with you, as do the various betting pools out there. Of course, Brexit reminds us that the anti-establishment, populist vote in this election cycle is probably larger than the polls would indicate. Still, is it likely that lightning will strike the
MoreBig business is ruining this country. Big business is using its vast resources to bribe politicians. Big business is using its lawyers to abuse the legal system to ensure favorable court rulings. Big business is not afraid of small fines passed out by the government, as this is just the price of doing business. Big
MoreVenezuela’s current political crisis has drawn much attention worldwide. The shortages, increasing violence, skyrocketing inflation, and the increasing militarization of its economy are all fixtures of Venezuela’s current national disaster. Opposition movements have naturally arisen in response to Venezuela’s squalid state, with the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) leading the charge against the current ruling class. Despite the
MoreProponents of universal healthcare hold one of the most morally attractive political positions of present day: healthcare is a natural human right and should be readily available to all, regardless of socioeconomic standing. On top of their moral high ground, they pile on supposed proof of single payer’s merits by pointing to Canada, Scandinavia, and
MoreConservatism is the philosophy of a predictable, healthy society. No issue brings our various beliefs together like immigration, particularly the proposition of open borders and an immigration policy grounded outside of the national interest. Conservatives have rightly objected to an ill-conceived agenda of mass migration into the United States with no additional effort to assimilate
MoreThe rise of Donald Trump’s candidacy has generated a strong degree of backlash among the chattering classes worldwide. No stranger to controversy himself, his campaign’s unconventional style has led various experts to draw parallels between Trump and the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. While both Chávez and Trump never shied away from throwing verbal haymakers
MoreYou may have read the piece in the Wall Street Journal: “America’s Unworking Men”. I agree with the comments that the Democrat Party benefits from increasing joblessness. It makes sense when we consider the Democrat model for expanding their political power: 1.) Strengthening control from the top through the regulatory and tax power of the Washington-Wall Street
MoreDespite failing to prove his thesis that capitalism generates inequality (addressed in Part 1), the author closes by outlining the policy proposals he’d enact to reduce inequality. This proposal includes: “…a large cash grant to all citizens when they reach the age of majority, around the benchmark cost of taking a bachelor’s degree at private
MoreA large number of people are convinced that rising inequality between the rich and the poor is the primary driver of the ills that plague our society. Both the #Occupy movement that arose after the housing bubble burst, and the fervent support for the self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders, are proof of this. This opinion is backed
MoreIn recent times, Venezuela has been the object of many headlines across the globe that detail its current economic predicament. Once Latin America’s most stable country, Venezuela is now experiencing a historically unprecedented economic and social collapse. How did such a nation awash with bountiful oil reserves and numerous decades of democratic stability stoop to
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