Thomas Eddlem

The Libertarian Case Against Immigration Controls

by Thomas Eddlem | Jan 6, 2020 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Libertarians have long held the view that free trade is an absolute net benefit. There is no economic model demonstrating that barriers to trade increase aggregate wealth. Free trade as a net benefit is actually one of the few areas where economists of every school of thought – from Austrians to Keynesians to Behaviorists to Monetarists – all agree. But some want to make a single exception to this economic universal, even a few libertarians. Only in the instance where people are the good crossing international borders are those barriers not necessarily beneficial, say the bordertarians....

The New Threat to Free Political Speech

by Thomas Eddlem | Jun 21, 2017 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics

It’s said that tough cases make bad law. If so, Maryland’s prosecution of Dennis Fusaro and Stephen Waters for campaign finance law violations threatens to make some really bad law. The prosecutors themselves believe the case will “justify burdening speech and associational rights” under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and article 10 of the Maryland State Constitution’s Declaration of Rights. The latter promises “That freedom of speech and debate, or proceedings in the Legislature, ought not to be impeached in any Court of Judicature.” The case stems from a county council race...

No Place to Hide: The Church Committee Hearings Revisited

by Thomas Eddlem | Jun 19, 2017 | Featured Articles, Justice

The 21st century attack on privacy by the NSA, FBI and CIA casts the hearings by Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Otis Pike (D-N.Y.) during the early 1970s in a new light as a path to needed reforms. Hero whistleblower Edward Snowden told interviewers after he revealed widespread NSA warrantless searches that “I don't want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity, or love, or friendship is recorded. And that's not something I'm willing to support. It's not something I'm willing to build. And it's not something I'm...

MOAB is the new greatest show on earth

by Thomas Eddlem | Apr 17, 2017 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

MOAB is the new greatest show on earth. Donald Trump is the first President to have seamlessly merged reality television with war. Like the director of an old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, he's constantly looking for ever-bigger explosions to wow the audience to distract from the aging actor. The Copper-Toned Coprolite traded in Neilsen for Rasmussen and Gallup two years ago, but MOAB is the new way to the top of the ratings. Immediately after authorizing the bombing, and fresh from make-up (presumably thrashing his head amongst the rubble of the bottom of a nearly empty Cheetos bag), Trump...

On the Life of William Norman Grigg

by Thomas Eddlem | Apr 13, 2017 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

One of the greatest joys of my life was being able to work right next to William Norman Grigg at The New American magazine from 1994-2001 in Appleton, Wisconsin. I had been one of the staffers who had moved out from Belmont, Massachusetts to Appleton in 1989, and he was quickly added to the magazine's staff after some brilliantly-written columns in 1993. "Thesaurus Rex," as he was sometimes called in Appleton, wrote for the internal newsletter of the company we called "The Insider Report" with a wit and vocabulary that made everyone in the office belly laugh. Hardly any of his satiric wit...

Economic Stimulus? Try More Savings and Lower Debt

by Thomas Eddlem | Jan 6, 2017 | Economics, Featured Articles

President-elect Donald Trump's proposed $1 trillion infrastructure spending program promises “accelerated economic growth.” But an analysis of data from the IMF's World Economic Outlook database revealed that more government spending is not the path to economic growth. [See part one of this series: Will Trump's Infrastructure Stimulus Spending Work?] So if government spending doesn't drive economic growth, what does drive it? The IMF data demonstrates that there are two major factors in a country's economic growth: Savings and low government debt. Of the two, savings is by far the more...

Will Trump’s Infrastructure Stimulus Spending Work?

by Thomas Eddlem | Jan 5, 2017 | Economics, Featured Articles

Well, government spending never has increased economic growth. (Part one of two) President-elect Donald Trump proposed a new $1 trillion infrastructure spending and tax cut package which his campaign promised is “a golden opportunity for accelerated economic growth and more rapid productivity gains.” But is more government spending a golden opportunity for economic growth? The answer to that question would surprise most establishment economists. Former Princeton University Professor Paul Krugman wrote for The Guardian of London last year that more government spending stimulates an economy...

Next Entries »

Thomas R. Eddlem is a freelance writer published in more than twenty periodicals, holds a master degree in economics from Boston College and is communications director for the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts.