As the latest debt-ceiling drama winds down, Americans are varyingly exasperated, angered, anxious and maybe even a little bit entertained by the spectacle. While their emotions vary, most citizens have something in common: They don’t realize they’re being misled...
national debt
Three Lies They’re Telling You about the Debt Ceiling
by Ryan McMaken | May 24, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
Negotiations over increasing the federal debt ceiling continue in Washington. As has occurred several times over the past twenty years, Republicans and Democrats are presently using increases in the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip in negotiating how federal tax...
DoD Insiders Accuse US Arms Dealers of ‘Price Gouging’ Amid Ukraine Proxy War
by Connor Freeman | May 22, 2023 | News
American military-industrial complex firms are guilty of “price gouging,” former Pentagon insiders told Newsweek. These accusations come amidst Washington’s exponentially rising demand for weapons systems to both bolster Taiwan – in an effort to destabilize China – and support NATO’s proxy Kiev during its war with Russia.
Saddling Our Kids with Debt and a Draft
by Inna Patrick | Apr 17, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
When Congress discusses banning TikTok to keep our children safe from Chinese government spying, what do they really have in mind? And is it a pretext to bring back the military draft? The debate conjures up memories of when Congress adopted children’s interests in...
Donald Trump Promises to Protect the Welfare State
by Laurence Vance | Mar 9, 2023 | Featured Articles
In a recent brief video message to his supporters, former president and current 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump warned Republicans about cutting Medicare or Social Security: Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or...
Raising the Debt Ceiling Is An Anti-Social Policy
by Daniel Lacalle | Feb 22, 2023 | Featured Articles
Every time the United States reaches its debt limit, we read that it is important to reach an agreement to lift it. The narrative is that the debt ceiling must be raised, or the US economy will suffer a severe contraction. There is even an episode of a TV series,...
Arizona Must Pass ‘Defend the Guard’
by Paul Gosar | Feb 14, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics
President Joe Biden’s foreign policy is fundamentally broken. What should have been a clean, quick withdrawal from Afghanistan was given an artificial extension by the White House and bungled by complacent Pentagon brass. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been...
Don’t Get Duped By the ‘State of the Union’
by Jim Bovard | Feb 13, 2023 | Featured Articles, Politics
Watching President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech was like being cornered by a drunken lout who endlessly yanks on your shirt sleeve and babbles about all the favors he’s going to do for you. Biden told so many howlers that he eventually got heckled like a...
Another Cycle of Debt Ceiling Hysteria
by Ron Paul | Jan 25, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
This week the U.S. government reached its 31.4 trillion dollars borrowing limit, better known as the “debt ceiling.” This led to a showdown among House Republicans, President Biden, and congressional Democrats. House Republicans are demanding that President Biden and...
The Idea of Making a ‘Trillion Dollar Coin’ Is Still Dumb
by Ryan McMaken | Jan 24, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
Here we go again. Every few years in Congress there is a purely political battle over the debt ceiling. We're supposed to be horrified and worried that the U.S. might default on some of its debt. Some commentators will insist the U.S. has never defaulted, and that...
The ‘Mother of All Economic Crises’
by Ron Paul | Dec 13, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles
Nouriel Roubini, a former advisor to the International Monetary Fund and member of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, was one of the few “mainstream” economists to predict the collapse of the housing bubble. Now Roubini is warning that the staggering...
America’s Insolvency is Mandatory
by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Dec 1, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles
In October, the U.S. national debt reached $31 trillion, and the government is projected to wade another trillion dollars into the red in the 2023 fiscal year. The longer-term picture is even gloomier, with the deficit expected to double to $2 trillion by 2030....
Our Economic System Is Built To Enrich the 1%
by Jeffrey Wernick | Nov 29, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles
I would like to attempt to describe our economic model since we abandoned sound money and any constraints upon our ability to print IOUs (or what most refer to as dollars without any understanding of what that really means). Before, there was mandated fungibility...
When $5 Trillion Is Not Enough
by Laurence Vance | Nov 28, 2022 | Featured Articles
The federal government seized from the American people almost $5 trillion ($4.896119 trillion) in fiscal year 2022 (Oct. 1, 2021 through Sept. 30, 2022), according to The Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government (MTS),...
Blog
The Non-Existent Difference Between National Socialism and Democratic Socialism
Summary: National Socialism and Democratic Socialism both advocate institutionalized violence by the state against peaceful people only differing in rhetoric. The most popular self described Democratic Socialists in America today are Senator Bernie Sanders and...
A Response to My Memorial Day Critics
My article against Memorial Day drew a lot of ire and attention. This should not have been surprising; I was making a controversial statement. What did surprise me, however, was that many critics were self-described libertarians or former libertarians. There were many...
Ignoring Political Gossip & Sticking to Principle
https://youtu.be/ZwWHjYVY4tg In the private sector, firms must attract voluntary customers or they fail; and if they fail, investors lose their money, and managers and employees lose their jobs. The possibility of failure, therefore, is a powerful incentive to find...
The Myth of “Hyper-Rugged-Isolationist-Individualism”
Myth #1: Libertarians believe that each individual is an isolated, hermetically sealed atom, acting in a vacuum without influencing each other. This is a common charge, but a highly puzzling one. In a lifetime of reading libertarian and classical-liberal...
The Lesson From Germany and Korea
Institutions are, of course, in some sense the products of culture. But, because they formalize a set of norms, institutions are often the things that keep a culture honest, determining how far it is conducive to good behaviour rather than bad. To illustrate the...
Occupational Licensing Increases Prices and Deprives People of Options
When you shop online, vendors usually give you a bunch of different ways to sort your options. Take Amazon: One popular sorting option – especially for customers with low income – is “Price: Low to High.” You’ve probably used it yourself many times. This...
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