A Runaway Train by Jacob G. Hornberger January 12, 2009 The political and economic situation in the United States has the feel of a runaway train. Federal spending continues to go through the roof, both in foreign and domestic affairs. That means more federal borrowing, which means more money added to the national debt. It also inevitably means more inflation or printing of money to ...
Reject Interventionism and Embrace Liberty by Jacob G. Hornberger January 9, 2009 Ludwig von Mises pointed out that one government intervention will inevitably lead to more interventions. The reason is that the initial intervention produces a crisis, which then leads public officials to call for a new intervention to address the crisis. That new intervention then produces a new crisis, which then leads to new interventions. A ...
Redistributing the Wealth in a Free Market by Jacob G. Hornberger January 8, 2009 Ever since the advent of the welfare state, liberals have argued that it is essential that the federal government tax the rich in order to give to the poor. Otherwise, they claim, in a free-market economy, the rich only get richer and the poor only get poorer. What nonsense! If the rich only get richer, would ...
The Power of Ideas in the War on Drugs by Jacob G. Hornberger January 7, 2009 A good example of the power of ideas occurred recently in El Paso, where the City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on the federal government to consider legalizing drugs as a solution to the drug-war violence in Mexico. Although the mayor vetoed the resolution and El Paso’s congressman opposed it, the City Council’s unanimous enactment of the resolution ...
The Real Value of the Standing Army by Jacob G. Hornberger January 6, 2009 As commentators such as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald and Cato’s Gene Healey have reported, the U.S. military has deployed combat-tested troops to a homeland-defense mission here in the United States. The unit is the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, which has just returned from duty in Iraq. The Pentagon is denying that the troops will ...
Obama’s Public-Works Folly by Jacob G. Hornberger January 5, 2009 Americans might well rue the day when they trusted the federal government to spend the nation into prosperity. It just isn’t going to happen. All that Barack Obama’s massive public-works spending spree is going to accomplish is either more debt added to the national debt or more depreciation in the value of the dollar, ...
Why Trust Big Brother on Economics? by Jacob G. Hornberger January 2, 2009 Liberals befuddle me. When it comes to matters of privacy and civil liberties, they correctly exclaim against trusting Big Brother. Yet, when it comes to matters relating to economic liberty and well-being, they take an opposite tact and exclaim that people should have no reservations about trusting Big Brother. One of the fascinating characteristics ...
Hornberger’s Blog, January 2009 by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2009 Friday, January 30, 2009 Jail for Businessmen, a Pass for Torturers by Jacob G. Hornberger Francesco Insolia must soon report to a federal penitentiary to begin serving a one-year sentence. His crime? Hiring illegal aliens from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in his leather-goods company in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He has also been ordered to pay $1 million to the federal government. Meanwhile, ...
Stop Foreign Aid to Israel (and Everywhere Else) by Jacob G. Hornberger December 31, 2008 I can already hear the pro-empire, pro-intervention crowd making their announcement after a terrorist attack in the United States by a victim of the Israeli bombing in Gaza: “The attack had nothing to do with anger and hatred arising from the unconditional financial and military aid that the U.S. government has furnished the Israeli ...
Socialism, Taxation, and Gold Seizures by Jacob G. Hornberger December 30, 2008 Those Americans with socialist propensities, including, of course, Barack Obama, are surely having their hearts warmed by recent actions of fellow traveler Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected dictator of Venezuela. Faced with falling oil revenues, Chavez has just announced the government seizure of several privately operated gold concessions, which, he pointed out, are ...
Private Property, Freedom, and Prosperity by Jacob G. Hornberger December 29, 2008 Two separate articles in yesterday’s New York Times reflect the meaning of private property. One article was about white farmers in Zimbabwe and the other was about a woman in Seattle named Edith Macefield. In Zimbabwe the government has been taking farms away from white owners and giving them to black citizens. When one of the ...
Bernard Madoff: Another Regulation Success Story by Jacob G. Hornberger December 19, 2008 The $50 billion fraud allegedly committed by Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff has got to be false. After all, we’ve got the SEC. Right? It’s been in existence since the 1930s. Right? Its purpose is to ensure that the American people are protected from fraud in the financial markets. Right? Well, then how is it ...