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TGIF: Free the Housing Market!

TGIF: Free the Housing Market!

by | Feb 21, 2025 | , , , , ,

Economist Bryan Caplan has done it again. His latest graphic nonfiction book is Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation, illustrated by Ady Branzei and published by the Cato Institute. (His first was Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration.) Caplan's target is a worthy one: zoning and other (anti-)housing regulations, which damage many people in various ways, some that will surprise you. While he could have written a conventional book, it almost certainly would have been dreadfully dull and accessible to only a few academics and policy wonks. That is no...

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National Greatness

by | Feb 17, 2025 |

“A nation which makes greatness its polestar can never be free; beneath national greatness sink individual greatness, honor, wealth and freedom. But though history, experience and reasoning confirm these ideas; yet all- powerful delusion has been able to make the people of every nation lend a helping hand in putting on their own fetters and rivetting their own chains, and in this service delusion always employs men too great to speak the truth, and yet too powerful to be doubted. Their statements are believed—their projects adopted—their ends answered and the deluded subjects of all this...

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TGIF: Emergency! Emergency?

TGIF: Emergency! Emergency?

by | Feb 14, 2025 | , , , , ,

Look, as a libertarian I think the list of federal entities to be abolished soon should include the: Consumer Financial Protection Board, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Reserve System, Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Agriculture, Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Agency for International Development, Central Intelligence Agency and the rest of the "community," Consumer Product Safety Commission, Food and Drug Administration, Drug...

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Abolish Antitrust!

by | Feb 8, 2025 | , ,

"That there is inequality of ability or monetary income on the free market should surprise no one. As we have seen above, men are not 'equal' in their tastes, interests, abilities, or locations. Resources are not distributed “equally” over the earth.16 This inequality or diversity in abilities and distribution of resources insures inequality of income on the free market. And, since a man’s monetary assets are derived from his and his ancestors’ abilities in serving consumers on the market, it is not surprising that there is inequality of monetary wealth as well. "The term 'free competition,'...

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TGIF: Free Speech Restored?

TGIF: Free Speech Restored?

by | Feb 7, 2025 | , , , ,

Don't get accustomed to me praising Donald Trump, but exceptions will occur now and then. Trump is no principled friend of liberty, not by a long shot. Judging by most of his actions and words, he recognizes no impenetrable boundary between the government and the private sector, the market economy. We may infer that he sees the central government and the country itself as a company that he runs with few restraints. He seems to imagine himself as the chairman and CEO of the United States, with only a toothlessly subservient board of directors. I need only point to his trade and immigration...

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TGIF: Birthright Citizenship and the Constitution

TGIF: Birthright Citizenship and the Constitution

by | Jan 31, 2025 | , , , ,

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.... —U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV Donald Trump says he wants a "revolution of common sense." If he means it, he will abandon his unilateral attempt to cancel birthright citizenship, which the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, expressly acknowledges. The opening words of that amendment have a common-sense meaning that requires grotesque mental contortions to evade. Opponents of birthright citizenship will seek refuge in the amendment's...

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TGIF: Why McKinley?

TGIF: Why McKinley?

by | Jan 24, 2025 | , , , , , ,

Now what will hasten the day when our present advantages will wear out and when we shall come down to the conditions of the older and densely populated nations? The answer is: war, debt, taxation, diplomacy, a grand governmental system, pomp, glory, a big army and navy, lavish expenditures, political jobbery—in a word, imperialism. —William Graham Sumner In his inaugural address on Monday, Donald Trump paid tribute to only one former president, William McKinley, No. 25, who Trump said "made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent." He praised the Republican McKinley in...

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