Tag: United States government
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1,000 to Protest Attack on Free-Market Principles at U.S. Capitol
I am one of these people! Amidst Market Unrest, Americans for Prosperity Gathers Citizens to Protest Big-Government Power Grab WASHINGTON ? About 1,000 citizens will gather in front of the U.S. Capitol on Friday to participate in a free-market call to arms by the grassroots group Americans for Prosperity (AFP). Amidst market uncertainty, and just…
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Earmarks are (not) OK
In a Wichita Eagle letter, writer Prem N. Bajaj of Wichita makes the case that Earmarks are OK. But only by tortured reasoning, in my opinion. First, he states: “Earmarks finance local projects that the community is unable to support.” I ask Mr. Bajaj this question: Where, if not from community, does money for earmarks…
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Our problem is the manager of our money
Think of it: Nothing is more vital to capitalism than capital, the financial seed corn dedicated to next year’s crop. Yet we, believers in free markets, allow the price of capital, i.e., the interest rate on loanable funds, to be fixed by a central committee in accordance with government objectives. We might as well resurrect…
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Booted from White House Conference Call
My friend Leslie Carbone was Booted from White House Conference Call. By the way, Leslie is the author of Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform, which will be published in May 2009. I can’t wait.
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Wall Street Crisis Fruit of Government, Not Free Markets
Radley Balko writing about the activities of the United States Government in Reason Magazine: Many commenters have blamed all of this on capitalism. This isn’t capitalism. It’s a peculiar kind of corporatist socialism, where good risks and the resulting profits remain private, but bad risks and the resulting losses are passed on to taxpayers. There’s…
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Bailout Raises Libertarians’ Market Value
“The specter of the most titanic intervention in the markets since Franklin Roosevelt started sewing the safety net has folks at the Cato Institute reaching for something strong.” See Bailout Raises Libertarians’ Market Value in the Washington Post. Also from the Cato Institute: Because of their quasi-governmental status, there is a market perception that Fannie…
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Rotten Paper, Toxic Paper
Pat Buchanan’s take on the current financial crisis. See Day of Reckoning.
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The Bailout Reader
The Ludwig von Mises Institute has compiled The Bailout Reader, a collection of articles relevant to the current situation. Not all these articles are from the past few weeks, as Austrian economists have long understood the dangers of government interventionism, the fruits of which we see today. The events taking place in the financial market…
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Ron Paul’s Wisdom on the Current Financial Crisis
Ron Paul writes My Answer to the President, noting that the “financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived.” He introduces a quotation from Hayek this way: F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks? manipulation of interest rates creates the boom-bust cycle with which we are sadly familiar.…
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Is There Anyone Left to Pay Taxes?
The Tax Foundation reports that soon nearly half of the tax returns filed will owe no federal income tax, according to the economic plans of John McCain and Barack Obama. In its analysis Both Candidates’ Tax Plans Will Reduce Millions of Taxpayers’ Liability to Zero (or Less), the Tax Foundation reports that McCain’s announced tax…
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Laissez faire in Washington? On what planet?
Sheldon Richman of the Foundation for Economic Education contributes analysis of the current economic situation in the article Government Failure. A few quotes: Laissez faire in Washington? On what planet? Governments at all levels have regulated the financial industry from the time of the founding. … At the Division of Labour blog, economist Lawrence H.…
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Voters Want Less Pork, Even in Their Own District
From Voters Want Less Pork, Even in Their Own District, July 24, 2008 Wall Street Journal: The Club for Growth recently conducted a nationwide poll on government spending, and the results were exactly the opposite of what most politicians have been saying for years. Voters are fed up with Washington’s out-of-control spending. Politicians aren’t representing…