The first time I met Vladimir, my Russian college roommate freshman year, we got to talking about politics and it turned out he was all for the free market, and in fact went on to join the college investment club. At that time Bill Weld was governor of Massachusetts and there was a referendum—Question 3—on the ballot that fall that would have rolled back $2 billion in tax increases. I told Vlad about it. His question to me, posed in all sincerity: "Why wouldn't the vote in favor be 100 percent?" You would think it would be, wouldn't you? Murray Rothbard was interested in the question of how...

The general public wants to blame the United States president for the health of the U.S. economy, but there is a man behind the scenes who has much more influence over economic conditions, about whom Schoolhouse Rock never released a cartoon. Now there's a misinterpreted saying according to which one is not to say anything critical about a deceased person, but I doubt when Stalin died everyone talked about how nice he looked in a suit. No doubt the gratuitous airing of a deceased man's peccadilloes is in poor taste and serves no good purpose, and in general we ought to avoid attacking people...