I remarked a while back that, so far during the financial collapse, I had not seen anyone call for business executives to be put to death. Now I have. A blogger named Howie Klein, who posts at “DownWithTyranny,” was reviewing the forthcoming anti-capitalist film Inside Job , by Charles Ferguson, and in the course of his comments , Klein wrote: “As a firm believer in the death penalty, I heartily disagree with Ferguson that any of these crooks belong in prison.” Hyperbole? Maybe. But it has a tradition.
Question: On the topic of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, Objectivism , as I understand it, holds that the citizen delegates to the government have a monopoly on the use of force. If this is the case, then does Objectivism support the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and if so, how is this apparent contradiction resolved? Answer: Objectivism does not hold that government should be the only armed institution. It does hold that, for the government to function properly, it must be in a position to defeat any challenges to its power. That said, private security agencies, private arbitration boards, and an armed citizenry are not contradictory to the kind of limited government that Objectivism envisions.
In my last blog post, “ When Only Ayn Rand Says It All ,” I promised to say more about the continuing prosecution of James Brown as part....
One of the strangest stories in English literature is the rise and fall of Joseph Addison’s Cato, which was first performed in London in....
In my investigation of the Jamie Olis case, I wrote: Following the collapse of Enron in December 2001, the city of Houston became the
It is always gratifying to find a prominent pro-business blogger, not obviously an Objectivist, who feels that he cannot adequately express his revulsion for the government persecution of businessmen except through the words of Ayn Rand. Today’s example comes from the estimable Tom Kirkendall of Houston’s Clear Thinkers .
March 2005 -- Many people seem to sense it. The debate over whether to reform Social Security by allowing individuals to divert some of their payments into personal retirement accounts reflects a much deeper battle, one literally for the soul of the Republic. It pits those who would take the first small steps in restoring the morality necessary to sustain a free society against those who have undermined that ethos and who would perpetuate a system of servitude. To appreciate the nature of the battle it's necessary to recognize that true individualists, like the ones who created this country, are autonomous and independent. What does that mean? It means that they pursue their own goals in life by right, not by permission of "society," their neighbors, or elected officials—indeed, the purpose of government is to protect their lives, liberty, and property. It means that they rely on their own efforts to secure the means to their material survival. They don't beg government bureaucrats for alms or kiss the feet of feudal lords for handouts. Rather, through their own efforts they produce goods and services that they exchange with willing customers based on mutual consent. They are independent individuals in control of their own lives, dealing freely with one another.
It seems that the political Left’s criminalization of business will be debated this autumn via movies. And given the cultural Left’s dominance of the film industry, that is not encouraging. I have mentioned earlier the hard-hitting “exposé” about the financial crisis: “ Inside Job .” And I have mentioned the apparently pathetic right-wing alternative “ I Want Your Money .” Now I hear that a film is due out on November 1st dealing with the rise and fall of Eliot Spitzer: “ Client 9 .”
March 2005 -- President Bush's recent emphasis on reforming Social Security to include personal retirement accounts has been welcomed by free market advocates as a needed step toward giving people more control over their own lives. So far, much of the debate has focused on issues affecting individuals as participants in Social Security, such as what portion of their payroll taxes people should be allowed to invest in personal retirement accounts, how much the government should restrict investment choices in those accounts, and the extent to which Social Security should provide a minimum benefit relating to personal retirement accounts. Most current reform proposals provide that investment choices would not include individual stocks and bonds selected by the holders of personal accounts, but would be limited to diversified funds that invest in a broad range of stocks, bonds, or both. For example, under the Cato Institute proposal, employees would initially have three investment choices. An employee's contributions would be deposited in one of three balanced funds, each highly diversified and invested in thousands of securities. The default portfolio, where one's money would be invested if no choice were made, would have 60 percent stocks and 40 percent bonds. The two other funds would have the same asset classes but with different weights. (See Michael Tanner, " The 6.2 Percent Solution: A Plan for Reforming Social Security. ")
March 2005 -- Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from David Kelley's book A Life of One's Own: Individual Rights and the Welfare
America has been the land of the individual, and most Americans have thought of themselves as individualists. We still speak favorably of...
The word “tragedy” is generally misused, referring to everything from an act of war (9/11) to an act of God (the earthquake in Haiti). But today the word does apply: to the fall of Robert Moffat, formerly a senior vice president in charge of IBM’s hardware division and a good contender for becoming the company’s CEO. Today, he was sentenced to six months in prison for leaking confidential information to Danielle Chiesi, a consultant for the hedge fund New Castle, and, not coincidentally, Moffat’s mistress.
Todd Henderson, of the group blog “Truth on the Market,” had a suggestion last Thursday : Subject politicians to the same good-governance
Peter J. Henning is not a bad guy, despite the fact that he writes the column “ White Collar Watch ” for the New York Times. He is a professor of law at Wayne State University Law School, and he formerly posted at the “ White Collar Crime Prof ” blog, which takes an approach to its subject that is typical of the general culture but not rabidly anti-business. Certainly, Henning stands head and shoulders above his counterpart at the Washington Post, “ Market Cop ” Zach Goldfarb, a young punk who seems to have no qualifications at all for his position apart from having graduated from Princeton in 2005 with a virulent anti-capitalist animus.
Greg Reyes was scheduled to enter prison today, for eighteen months. But whether he did or did not, I have been unable to learn. I could find no stories about it in the national newspapers. I could find no stories about it in Google News. I could find no stories in Dow Jones’s Factiva database, with its 17,000 business sources. Finally, I called the San Francisco office of Bloomberg News, and they did not know.
One of the most effective tricks of the anti-business culture is to hold capitalists to a standard that they cannot possibly meet. For example, in the Martha Stewart case, U.S. Attorney James Comey declared: “This case is about lying.” Can you imagine what Mark Twain would have said if you’d told him that businessmen in the twenty-first century would be sent to jail for making inaccurate statements? He would have written an uproarious short story about a twenty-first century America in which prison sentences were visited upon lovers who made inaccurate statements to each other. “This is a case about lying,” his prosecutor would scream to the mob. Waving before the press a billet-doux that read 'I shall adore you forever,' the prosecutor would yell: "No mortal can adore another mortal forever. That is plain deceit. That is outright fraud."
Fall 2010 -- A full three-quarters of American voters are “angry” over current federal policies and believe “neither Republican political leaders nor Democratic political leaders have a good understanding of what is needed today,” according to a February 2010 poll by Rasmussen Reports. “Americans are united in the belief that the political system is broken, that most politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party has the answers,” Rasmussen explains.
Whoever makes something, having bought or contracted for all other held resources used in the process…is entitled to it. The situation is no
March 2002 -- The sudden bankruptcy of Enron Corporation is a scandal that has rocked support for the free market. Living in a division-of..
February 2002 -- Businessmen profiled in the popular press often mention Atlas Shrugged as their favorite book. Ayn Rand was one of the
I remarked a while back that, so far during the financial collapse, I had not seen anyone call for business executives to be put to death. Now I have. A blogger named Howie Klein, who posts at “DownWithTyranny,” was reviewing the forthcoming anti-capitalist film Inside Job , by Charles Ferguson, and in the course of his comments , Klein wrote: “As a firm believer in the death penalty, I heartily disagree with Ferguson that any of these crooks belong in prison.” Hyperbole? Maybe. But it has a tradition.
Question: On the topic of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, Objectivism , as I understand it, holds that the citizen delegates to the government have a monopoly on the use of force. If this is the case, then does Objectivism support the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and if so, how is this apparent contradiction resolved? Answer: Objectivism does not hold that government should be the only armed institution. It does hold that, for the government to function properly, it must be in a position to defeat any challenges to its power. That said, private security agencies, private arbitration boards, and an armed citizenry are not contradictory to the kind of limited government that Objectivism envisions.
In my last blog post, “ When Only Ayn Rand Says It All ,” I promised to say more about the continuing prosecution of James Brown as part....
One of the strangest stories in English literature is the rise and fall of Joseph Addison’s Cato, which was first performed in London in....
In my investigation of the Jamie Olis case, I wrote: Following the collapse of Enron in December 2001, the city of Houston became the
It is always gratifying to find a prominent pro-business blogger, not obviously an Objectivist, who feels that he cannot adequately express his revulsion for the government persecution of businessmen except through the words of Ayn Rand. Today’s example comes from the estimable Tom Kirkendall of Houston’s Clear Thinkers .
March 2005 -- Many people seem to sense it. The debate over whether to reform Social Security by allowing individuals to divert some of their payments into personal retirement accounts reflects a much deeper battle, one literally for the soul of the Republic. It pits those who would take the first small steps in restoring the morality necessary to sustain a free society against those who have undermined that ethos and who would perpetuate a system of servitude. To appreciate the nature of the battle it's necessary to recognize that true individualists, like the ones who created this country, are autonomous and independent. What does that mean? It means that they pursue their own goals in life by right, not by permission of "society," their neighbors, or elected officials—indeed, the purpose of government is to protect their lives, liberty, and property. It means that they rely on their own efforts to secure the means to their material survival. They don't beg government bureaucrats for alms or kiss the feet of feudal lords for handouts. Rather, through their own efforts they produce goods and services that they exchange with willing customers based on mutual consent. They are independent individuals in control of their own lives, dealing freely with one another.
It seems that the political Left’s criminalization of business will be debated this autumn via movies. And given the cultural Left’s dominance of the film industry, that is not encouraging. I have mentioned earlier the hard-hitting “exposé” about the financial crisis: “ Inside Job .” And I have mentioned the apparently pathetic right-wing alternative “ I Want Your Money .” Now I hear that a film is due out on November 1st dealing with the rise and fall of Eliot Spitzer: “ Client 9 .”
March 2005 -- President Bush's recent emphasis on reforming Social Security to include personal retirement accounts has been welcomed by free market advocates as a needed step toward giving people more control over their own lives. So far, much of the debate has focused on issues affecting individuals as participants in Social Security, such as what portion of their payroll taxes people should be allowed to invest in personal retirement accounts, how much the government should restrict investment choices in those accounts, and the extent to which Social Security should provide a minimum benefit relating to personal retirement accounts. Most current reform proposals provide that investment choices would not include individual stocks and bonds selected by the holders of personal accounts, but would be limited to diversified funds that invest in a broad range of stocks, bonds, or both. For example, under the Cato Institute proposal, employees would initially have three investment choices. An employee's contributions would be deposited in one of three balanced funds, each highly diversified and invested in thousands of securities. The default portfolio, where one's money would be invested if no choice were made, would have 60 percent stocks and 40 percent bonds. The two other funds would have the same asset classes but with different weights. (See Michael Tanner, " The 6.2 Percent Solution: A Plan for Reforming Social Security. ")
March 2005 -- Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from David Kelley's book A Life of One's Own: Individual Rights and the Welfare
America has been the land of the individual, and most Americans have thought of themselves as individualists. We still speak favorably of...
The word “tragedy” is generally misused, referring to everything from an act of war (9/11) to an act of God (the earthquake in Haiti). But today the word does apply: to the fall of Robert Moffat, formerly a senior vice president in charge of IBM’s hardware division and a good contender for becoming the company’s CEO. Today, he was sentenced to six months in prison for leaking confidential information to Danielle Chiesi, a consultant for the hedge fund New Castle, and, not coincidentally, Moffat’s mistress.
Todd Henderson, of the group blog “Truth on the Market,” had a suggestion last Thursday : Subject politicians to the same good-governance
Peter J. Henning is not a bad guy, despite the fact that he writes the column “ White Collar Watch ” for the New York Times. He is a professor of law at Wayne State University Law School, and he formerly posted at the “ White Collar Crime Prof ” blog, which takes an approach to its subject that is typical of the general culture but not rabidly anti-business. Certainly, Henning stands head and shoulders above his counterpart at the Washington Post, “ Market Cop ” Zach Goldfarb, a young punk who seems to have no qualifications at all for his position apart from having graduated from Princeton in 2005 with a virulent anti-capitalist animus.
Greg Reyes was scheduled to enter prison today, for eighteen months. But whether he did or did not, I have been unable to learn. I could find no stories about it in the national newspapers. I could find no stories about it in Google News. I could find no stories in Dow Jones’s Factiva database, with its 17,000 business sources. Finally, I called the San Francisco office of Bloomberg News, and they did not know.
One of the most effective tricks of the anti-business culture is to hold capitalists to a standard that they cannot possibly meet. For example, in the Martha Stewart case, U.S. Attorney James Comey declared: “This case is about lying.” Can you imagine what Mark Twain would have said if you’d told him that businessmen in the twenty-first century would be sent to jail for making inaccurate statements? He would have written an uproarious short story about a twenty-first century America in which prison sentences were visited upon lovers who made inaccurate statements to each other. “This is a case about lying,” his prosecutor would scream to the mob. Waving before the press a billet-doux that read 'I shall adore you forever,' the prosecutor would yell: "No mortal can adore another mortal forever. That is plain deceit. That is outright fraud."
Fall 2010 -- A full three-quarters of American voters are “angry” over current federal policies and believe “neither Republican political leaders nor Democratic political leaders have a good understanding of what is needed today,” according to a February 2010 poll by Rasmussen Reports. “Americans are united in the belief that the political system is broken, that most politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party has the answers,” Rasmussen explains.
Whoever makes something, having bought or contracted for all other held resources used in the process…is entitled to it. The situation is no
March 2002 -- The sudden bankruptcy of Enron Corporation is a scandal that has rocked support for the free market. Living in a division-of..
February 2002 -- Businessmen profiled in the popular press often mention Atlas Shrugged as their favorite book. Ayn Rand was one of the