Bipartisan “Stimulus” Hypocrisy by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2009 The cynicism and shallowness of politics were abundantly displayed throughout the debate over the “stimulus” bill. The Obama administration and its allies in Congress see themselves as champions of democracy, yet the process by which the bill was rammed through Congress flouted the democratic spirit. The final bill was nearly ...
The Fallacies of Another New Deal, Part 3 by William L. Anderson May 1, 2009 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Historians want us to believe that Franklin Roosevelt had nothing to do with causing the massive unemployment and World War II that came in the wake of the Great Depression. Instead, they tell us that Roosevelt simply did the best he could with the hand which he was dealt. No doubt, ...
The Fallacy of Equal Pay for Equal Work by Glenn Jacobs May 1, 2009 We’ve all heard the phrase “equal pay for equal work.” Many of those who habitually repeat this mantra may not realize that it is simply a variation of the discredited labor theory of value (LTV), which is generally associated with Marxian economics. According to the LTV, the value of a product is related to the labor needed ...
The Justice of Pay Discrimination by Michael Tennant May 1, 2009 Recently the upstairs toilet in my house backed up. Unable to budge the clog, my wife called a plumber, who replaced both the seal and some of the inner workings of the toilet. Let’s say, just for the sake of this example, that the plumber charged us $200 for the repair. Now suppose the next day the downstairs toilet had needed ...
Selling Short the Short-Seller by Gregory Bresiger May 1, 2009 It happens every financial crash. Or in every prolonged bear market. Or almost any time things go bad in the financial markets. An evil person must be found. Oftentimes, the scapegoat is the short-seller. Today the short-seller is like Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. It’s ...
A Free Market in Labor by George Leef May 1, 2009 Labor Economics from a Free Market Perspective: Employing the Unemployable by Walter Block (World Scientific, 2008); 393 pages. The first time I ever heard of Walter Block was in 1980, when a faculty colleague showed me his copy of Block’s book Defending the Undefendable. Knowing of my anarcho-capitalist views, my colleague said ...
A Safer, Freer, and Wealthier America (video) by Bruce Fein April 9, 2009 On April 6, 2009, Bruce Fein gave the following speech at the “The Economic Liberty Lecture Series.” The speech can viewed below in its entirety.
Hope Is No Substitute for Theory by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2009 Should libertarians hope that Barack Obama succeeds or fails in his presidency? The question comes to mind because conservatives got embroiled in the issue when their leading radio star, Rush Limbaugh, said he hoped Obama would fail. Some commentators thought that was a horrible thing to say. Radio stars need ...
The Fallacies of Another New Deal, Part 2 by William L. Anderson April 1, 2009 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In the latter part of 1920, the economy fell into a deep recession, which lasted well into 1921. As Murray Rothbard points out, it was the last downturn in which the government did not play much of a role. Newly elected President Warren G. Harding openly said that government should ...
Spending Our Way to Wealth and Prosperity by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2009 One of the most ludicrous policy prescriptions issued by federal officials is the one that exhorts the citizenry to spend more money to get the nation out of a recession. That’s the key to national economic prosperity, government officials exclaim. “Go to the mall and shop,” they tell people. If people will just spend, spend, and spend some more, ...
The Fallacies of Another New Deal, Part 1 by William L. Anderson March 1, 2009 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 As the financial panics on Wall Street seem to be never-ending, a lot of commentators are openly asking whether the United States will slide into something akin to the Great Depression of nearly 80 years ago. Certainly, there is real fear in the air, and at this writing, the current ...
Two Ways to Fight an Economic Depression by Gregory Bresiger March 1, 2009 “There was a depression in 1920? Really?” That was the comment I received recently from a smart, usually well-informed editor. Yes, there was a depression. But it was over so fast that few people seem to have heard of it. Yet almost everyone knows about the Great ...