Daily Articles

Predatory Pricing

by Laurence M. Vance October 1, 2021

Uncle Sam can’t seem to make up his mind about how to define predatory pricing. Charge too little for a good or a service and the federal government might term it predatory pricing. But charge too much for a good or a service and the federal government might term it predatory pricing. And here is a related ...

The Importance of Liberty and the Rhetorical Misuse of Freedom

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 2021

The seemingly singular concern of modern political debate, dispute, and disagreement is the issue of how and in what forms government will command and control and restrict and regulate the actions and interactions of virtually everyone in society, as well as redistribute the income and wealth of some for the benefit of others. Open the opinion pages of practically any ...

Deserting the Drug War

by Matthew Harwood October 1, 2021

As you leaf through the first few pages of Dr. Carl L. Hart’s book Drug Use for Grownups, you come across a quote from the writer and social critic James Baldwin. It says: “If you want to get to the heart of the dope problem, legalize it.... a law, in operation, that can only be used against ...

America’s Fiscal History: From Liberty to Paternalism

by Richard M. Ebeling September 28, 2021

If passed in its proposed forms, the $3.5 trillion of new “entitlement” programs and spending over the next ten years, and the accompanying call for increases in a wide variety of taxes, will represent the largest expansion of the American welfare state since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society agenda in the second half of the 1960s. It will further envelop ...

Stop Playing the Government’s Mind Games

by John W. Whitehead September 27, 2021

“No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.”—Edward R. Murrow, broadcast journalist America is in the midst of an epidemic of historic proportions. The contagion being spread like wildfire is turning communities into battlegrounds and setting Americans one against the other. Normally mild-mannered individuals caught up in the throes of this disease have been ...

The Tragedy of 9/11 and the Afghan Debacle

by Richard M. Ebeling September 20, 2021

The American people have been sorrowfully marking the 20th anniversary of the disastrous events of September 11, 2001, when a band of hijackers gained control of several commercial airlines and crashed them into the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., with a fourth plane brought down in Pennsylvania by passengers resisting the terrorists ...

No One Should Need Government Permission to Work

by Laurence M. Vance September 16, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the workplace in many ways—not all of them good. Last year, most states issued states of emergency and ordered all “non-essential” businesses to close their doors. Bars, restaurants, gyms, nightclubs, barber shops, golf courses, nail salons, and movie theatres were shuttered. Sporting events and concerts were banned. Schools were closed. In ...

Constitution Day 2021: It’s Time to Make America Free Again

by John W. Whitehead September 15, 2021

“That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on.” — Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale The Constitution of the United States represents the classic solution to ...

Political Rhetoric Hides the Reality of Peaceful Production vs. Plunder

by Richard M. Ebeling September 13, 2021

The very nature of modern democratic politics is that it is seen as a means and a mechanism to transfer income to some in society at others’ expense. Virtually every politician runs for office on a campaign platform that promises to extend concrete and specific benefits to various selected groups through the taxing or regulating powers of government. This means ...

The Rise of the Security-Industrial Complex from 9/11 to COVID-19

by John W. Whitehead September 10, 2021

“I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”—Osama bin Laden (October 2001), as reported by CNN What a strange and harrowing road we’ve walked since September 11, 2001, littered with ...

Jerome Powell’s Quest for Economic Stability Is Destabilizing

by Richard M. Ebeling September 8, 2021

When the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank speaks the financial markets listen, and this was no different with Jerome Powell’s virtual address to the annual meeting of central bankers at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. What they got is what Harry Truman complained about when hearing from his economic advisors: “On the one hand, ‘this,’ but on the other hand, ...

Conservatives Give Bush and Trump a Free Pass on Afghanistan

by Laurence M. Vance September 1, 2021

The debacle in Afghanistan is all the fault of President Joe Biden and his  predecessor, Barack Obama, says James Jay Carafano at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Carafano is “a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges” and is Heritage’s “vice president for foreign and defense policy studies, E. W. Richardson fellow, and ...