Since the 1800s, surly Americans have derided politicians for spending tax dollars “like drunken sailors.” Until recently, that was considered a grave character fault. But Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act shows that inebriated spending is now the path to national...
Economics
Is Wholefoods’ ‘Conscious Capitalism’ Effective Altruism
by Antony Sammeroff | Jul 27, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles
Wholefoods, one of the most consciously ethical companies in the world, was picketed by animal rights activists in 2003. At first, CEO John Mackey was incensed. After all, Wholefoods are the good guys! Couldn't these would-be revolutionaries take their complaints to...
TGIF: Critical Race Theory and the Schools
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 23, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman
The government's K-12 schools--aka "public schools--are once again a battleground on which a bitter dispute is playing out. Wait!--once again? The government's schools have been a battleground since their inception in the 19th century. Since that's where the children...
TGIF: Who’s the Aggressor? Who’s the Victim?
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 16, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
When a libertarian says that the most basic individual right is the right not to be aggressed against, a clever interlocutor may accuse the libertarian of begging the question, of stuffing the rabbit into the hat. The trick, the critic will say, is in the word...
F.A. Hayek, the Progressive’s Devil
by Richard Ebeling | Jul 7, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism
There is the ideologically captured mind that squeezes all the complexities, diversities, uncertainties, and serendipities of life into one limited dimension of cause and explanation. One such mind is that of Wellesley College historian, Quinn Slobodian, who sees...
How Shipping Interests Have Rigged the Economic Game for a Century
by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Jul 1, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles
There’s a 101-year-old law most Americans have never heard of, one that shaves tens of billions of dollars out of the U.S. economy every year for the narrow benefit of politically-influential shipbuilders, shipyard unions and shipping lines. The Jones Act does that by...
Stagflation is Coming, Prepare Accordingly
by Daniel Lacalle | Jun 29, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles
The United States retail sales and jobless claims weakness, significantly below estimates, coincides with the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus in history. Something is not right when these figures come significantly below estimates in an environment of massive...
TGIF: Liberty as a Problem-Solving Process
by Sheldon Richman | Jun 25, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Strictly speaking, liberty isn't the solution to problems. It's what creates the framework in which solutions can be discovered. That is an important distinction because it reminds us that advocates of full-blown liberty do not offer the world a problem-free society...