March 8, 2006 -- The moral premises shared by any group tells you whether it's a society seeking mutual benefits for members based on respect and voluntary exchanges or a criminal gang. The message from the 200 politicians from 16 countries in the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union -- a message that screams like Islamic mobs protesting the Danish cartoons of Mohammad -- is that their organization, the governments they represent and the cultures on which they are based still remain beyond the bounds of civilized principles. Those politicians have called on “Arab and Muslim governments to spare no effort to pressure the UN to issue a resolution banning the slandering of religions.” They want legal action against those who violate such a ban.
George Washington unfortunately has become a cliché. For an older generation, he was too often treated as such a mythic figure that it was..
July 4, 2008 -- July 4, the anniversary of the birth of the United States, is a good time to remember the vision of this country. But to
Presidential inauguration addresses are usually forgotten since it’s what the chief executive does after he’s sworn in that is of most
It’s no secret that Michael Moore hates economic liberty; the theme of his movie Capitalism: A Love Story is that the free market is evil...
President Obama stumbled onto the analogy which perfectly points out the dangers of the very government-run health care system that he...
Want an eye-opening perspective on those in Congress and the Obama administration who want the government to control America’s health care..
Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman passed away on November 16, 2006 at the age of 94. Friedman was one of the most influential...
November 16, 2006 -- Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman passed away on November 16, 2006 at the age of 94. Friedman was one of
The morally ugly nature of actual altruism was on display when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently declared that
January 30, 2004 -- After experiencing the visual splendor of the Grand Canyon, campers, hikers and tourists will now encounter intellectual squalor in, of all places, the souvenir shops at the Canyon rim. Those stores now carry a Biblical creationist book entitled “Grand Canyon: A Different View,” which maintains that this great natural wonder was gouged out by Noah’s flood a few thousand years ago, contrary to all scientific evidence that shows it was formed millions of years ago by the erosive force of the Colorado River.
August 12, 2003 -- A Minnesota court has just placed the interests of two species of birds and one of fish over considerations of shipping and flood control, which benefit human beings. Judge Paul Magnuson has ruled that to comply with the Endangered Species Act and to protect the habitats of those creatures the Army Corps of Engineers must lower the level of the Missouri River.
October 13, 2005 -- As many major public policy matters are being debated in Washington -- a Supreme Court nomination, runaway federal spending -- seemingly small erosions of our independence and, thus, our freedom continue with very little attention.
Sidebar article to The Credit Crisis and Moral Hazards Fall 2008 issue -- Starting with a mortgage, here is just one example of the shadow-banking system—a train of very widespread practices and credit derivatives. 1. Banks made loans to individuals who had no hope of repaying them from their own income. But it didn’t matter, because the loans were secured by mortgages on real-estate properties that were presumed to be increasing in value. The loans were made with affordable, low payments for a couple of years, after which the payments would reset to higher amounts. At that time, it was expected that the individual would refinance his mortgage based on higher property values and restart with another loan that had low payments. 2. Banks packaged these loans as assets, to secure bonds and similar financial instruments. The package included some good mortgage loans and some bad ones. Based on the percentage of expected defaults in the mix, the bonds could be rated AAA by private rating agencies, such as Moody’s, Standard & Poors, and Fitch, whose fees were paid by the same banks whose bonds they were rating.
November 26, 2003 -- Trying to promote freedom and reason in Washington, D.C. can be a bit depressing. Following the goings-on here in the capital through television, newspapers and the Internet can also be a downer. Thus we all have all the more reason to welcome the Thanksgiving holiday, which focuses our thoughts on the good things in life.
Sidebar article to "The Credit Crisis and Moral Hazards " Fall 2008 issue -- Here are some things that you can do to protect yourself and, incidentally, your business: See if you can learn whether your brokers and banks are in financial trouble. A number of sites on the internet identify and discuss troubled banks. Stay on top of the news about your brokers and banks. If you learn that one is in serious financial trouble, reduce your exposure to that bank right away. Understand that banks and brokers have different kinds of insurance to cover your accounts. Ask each of them about how your accounts are insured. Get their written material on the topic, and don’t rely upon verbal assurances. Be sure that you do not exceed FDIC / SIPC / NCUA and other insurance limits for your accounts. Many brokers carry additional insurance; learn about yours.
outburst that compared that facility to the Soviet gulag. In a diverse and open society there will be serious voices criticizing various government policies and there will be nutcases standing on the corner, ranting and raving that everyone is out to get them and to kill us all and so on incoherently. We engage in reasoned discussion with the former because we assume that our exchanges of words are attempts to discover the truth. We perhaps look with pity on the latter if we think their tirades come from mental illness or with undisguised contempt if they're neo-Nazis, human-hating environmental extremists, followers of Lyndon LaRouche or other such self-made deluded creeps.
May 19, 2004 -- One should wait to see a film before reviewing it but one certainly can comment on the director's stated motivations and the audience response without knowing every camera angle or line of dialogue. Indicative of the sorry state of Old Europe's ethical infrastructure is "The Edukators," directed by Austrian-born Hans Weingartner. It is reported that in this movie three "idealistic" youths break into the homes of the rich not to steal their property but to rearrange the furniture and leave notes saying, "You have too much money." We're used to the leftist Europeans and their American cousins peddling class conflict. But the reception received by this film underscores the nature of their moral meltdown.
June 3, 2003 -- In her novel Anthem, Ayn Rand portrays a primitive, degenerate collectivist society in which all forms of innovation are viewed with suspicion. It took 50 years for the masters of this world to approve that radical invention: the candle. The spiritual brothers of those tyrants have accomplished almost the same feat here in Washington.
January 17, 2004 -- Our reactions to President George W. Bush’s plan to return to the Moon and eventually go on to Mars might start with a reference to Ayn Rand ’s essay on “Apollo 11.” In it she related her thoughts about the launch and landing of the first manned mission to the lunar surface. She described the experience of visiting the Kennedy Space Center to witness the take-off of the huge Saturn V rocket, of seeing it ride a trail of flames into the sky and hearing and feeling the roar of its engines.
March 8, 2006 -- The moral premises shared by any group tells you whether it's a society seeking mutual benefits for members based on respect and voluntary exchanges or a criminal gang. The message from the 200 politicians from 16 countries in the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union -- a message that screams like Islamic mobs protesting the Danish cartoons of Mohammad -- is that their organization, the governments they represent and the cultures on which they are based still remain beyond the bounds of civilized principles. Those politicians have called on “Arab and Muslim governments to spare no effort to pressure the UN to issue a resolution banning the slandering of religions.” They want legal action against those who violate such a ban.
George Washington unfortunately has become a cliché. For an older generation, he was too often treated as such a mythic figure that it was..
July 4, 2008 -- July 4, the anniversary of the birth of the United States, is a good time to remember the vision of this country. But to
Presidential inauguration addresses are usually forgotten since it’s what the chief executive does after he’s sworn in that is of most
It’s no secret that Michael Moore hates economic liberty; the theme of his movie Capitalism: A Love Story is that the free market is evil...
President Obama stumbled onto the analogy which perfectly points out the dangers of the very government-run health care system that he...
Want an eye-opening perspective on those in Congress and the Obama administration who want the government to control America’s health care..
Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman passed away on November 16, 2006 at the age of 94. Friedman was one of the most influential...
November 16, 2006 -- Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman passed away on November 16, 2006 at the age of 94. Friedman was one of
The morally ugly nature of actual altruism was on display when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently declared that
January 30, 2004 -- After experiencing the visual splendor of the Grand Canyon, campers, hikers and tourists will now encounter intellectual squalor in, of all places, the souvenir shops at the Canyon rim. Those stores now carry a Biblical creationist book entitled “Grand Canyon: A Different View,” which maintains that this great natural wonder was gouged out by Noah’s flood a few thousand years ago, contrary to all scientific evidence that shows it was formed millions of years ago by the erosive force of the Colorado River.
August 12, 2003 -- A Minnesota court has just placed the interests of two species of birds and one of fish over considerations of shipping and flood control, which benefit human beings. Judge Paul Magnuson has ruled that to comply with the Endangered Species Act and to protect the habitats of those creatures the Army Corps of Engineers must lower the level of the Missouri River.
October 13, 2005 -- As many major public policy matters are being debated in Washington -- a Supreme Court nomination, runaway federal spending -- seemingly small erosions of our independence and, thus, our freedom continue with very little attention.
Sidebar article to The Credit Crisis and Moral Hazards Fall 2008 issue -- Starting with a mortgage, here is just one example of the shadow-banking system—a train of very widespread practices and credit derivatives. 1. Banks made loans to individuals who had no hope of repaying them from their own income. But it didn’t matter, because the loans were secured by mortgages on real-estate properties that were presumed to be increasing in value. The loans were made with affordable, low payments for a couple of years, after which the payments would reset to higher amounts. At that time, it was expected that the individual would refinance his mortgage based on higher property values and restart with another loan that had low payments. 2. Banks packaged these loans as assets, to secure bonds and similar financial instruments. The package included some good mortgage loans and some bad ones. Based on the percentage of expected defaults in the mix, the bonds could be rated AAA by private rating agencies, such as Moody’s, Standard & Poors, and Fitch, whose fees were paid by the same banks whose bonds they were rating.
November 26, 2003 -- Trying to promote freedom and reason in Washington, D.C. can be a bit depressing. Following the goings-on here in the capital through television, newspapers and the Internet can also be a downer. Thus we all have all the more reason to welcome the Thanksgiving holiday, which focuses our thoughts on the good things in life.
Sidebar article to "The Credit Crisis and Moral Hazards " Fall 2008 issue -- Here are some things that you can do to protect yourself and, incidentally, your business: See if you can learn whether your brokers and banks are in financial trouble. A number of sites on the internet identify and discuss troubled banks. Stay on top of the news about your brokers and banks. If you learn that one is in serious financial trouble, reduce your exposure to that bank right away. Understand that banks and brokers have different kinds of insurance to cover your accounts. Ask each of them about how your accounts are insured. Get their written material on the topic, and don’t rely upon verbal assurances. Be sure that you do not exceed FDIC / SIPC / NCUA and other insurance limits for your accounts. Many brokers carry additional insurance; learn about yours.
outburst that compared that facility to the Soviet gulag. In a diverse and open society there will be serious voices criticizing various government policies and there will be nutcases standing on the corner, ranting and raving that everyone is out to get them and to kill us all and so on incoherently. We engage in reasoned discussion with the former because we assume that our exchanges of words are attempts to discover the truth. We perhaps look with pity on the latter if we think their tirades come from mental illness or with undisguised contempt if they're neo-Nazis, human-hating environmental extremists, followers of Lyndon LaRouche or other such self-made deluded creeps.
May 19, 2004 -- One should wait to see a film before reviewing it but one certainly can comment on the director's stated motivations and the audience response without knowing every camera angle or line of dialogue. Indicative of the sorry state of Old Europe's ethical infrastructure is "The Edukators," directed by Austrian-born Hans Weingartner. It is reported that in this movie three "idealistic" youths break into the homes of the rich not to steal their property but to rearrange the furniture and leave notes saying, "You have too much money." We're used to the leftist Europeans and their American cousins peddling class conflict. But the reception received by this film underscores the nature of their moral meltdown.
June 3, 2003 -- In her novel Anthem, Ayn Rand portrays a primitive, degenerate collectivist society in which all forms of innovation are viewed with suspicion. It took 50 years for the masters of this world to approve that radical invention: the candle. The spiritual brothers of those tyrants have accomplished almost the same feat here in Washington.
January 17, 2004 -- Our reactions to President George W. Bush’s plan to return to the Moon and eventually go on to Mars might start with a reference to Ayn Rand ’s essay on “Apollo 11.” In it she related her thoughts about the launch and landing of the first manned mission to the lunar surface. She described the experience of visiting the Kennedy Space Center to witness the take-off of the huge Saturn V rocket, of seeing it ride a trail of flames into the sky and hearing and feeling the roar of its engines.