"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Ideas about the role of government in society, its relationship to citizens, and about how much power the government should be given.
The Obama administration believes in its own propaganda. Believe it or not, the U.S. federal government is currently mandating the same kind of bad behavior that caused the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The … Read More
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, in a speech to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, declared that the breakup of the USSR was “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century”, or … Read More
Having given the institutional composition and powers of the Federal Reserve, and having given our opinion on what it should be doing and why, we will now look at what it … Read More
Last week on July 8 The Tax Foundation published a report entitled The Real Value of $100 in Each State. In their study they took data from The U.S. Bureau … Read More
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Photo Credit: Wickimedia Commons/Nick Solari This morning I read a very disturbing article by David Harsanyi on the federalist.com entitled “Bernie … Read More
NEWS FLASH! The Obama administration makes good on their “leading from behind” promise by announcing a Reduction In Force (RIF) of the U.S. Army of 40,000 soldiers and 17,000 civilian … Read More
You no doubt heard last week that on June 29 the Supreme Court invalidated an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation limiting emissions of mercury and some other pollutants from coal … Read More
These two questions might seem rather strange, coming from a citizen of the United States. Yet I have been alarmed by a number of blog posts from people on the political Left … Read More
My sister-in-law has just sent us the URL of a truly amazing news video about France and the economic and social troubles it is undergoing. Click here to see it. … Read More
The Dodd-Frank Act is the solution to a problem that does not exist, and is therefore totally unnecessary. The causes of the 2007-2008 financial crisis were not private sector greed … Read More
It seems like Charles Murray’s call for conservative civil disobedience is garnering more interest. An interview of Murray by a somewhat skeptical Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic magazine has just … Read More
Although we discussed some of the reasons why the U.S. economy has not recovered very robustly from the 2007-2008 financial crisis, we have not looked at exactly why the crisis happened. … Read More
So now the Supreme Court has ruled that it does not matter what the plain language of a legislative bill is. They claim to be able to sense what the … Read More
I was expecting “Japan’s lost decades” to be an easy story to tell. However, when I started researching for this post, I discovered a controversy existed on whether a lost decade … Read More
For all of my life the nations of Europe have been very much to the left of center. I suppose this condition is the legacy of dirigisme and socialism in France, Bismarck’s … Read More
Although we are technically no longer in a recession, the rate of economic growth is so low that the economy for many people seems like it is in recession. Below … Read More
Because of the complexity of the Great Depression, there are several different ways in which you can date the beginning and ending of this immense event. Many people date the … Read More
There are times when I get an almost surreal feeling that we are hurtling toward Armageddon. In the midst of American negotiations with Iran on limiting their nuclear program, international … Read More
This morning I read something immensely disturbing on the Wall Street Journal opinion page (access requires subscription). It reconfirms for me (as if I were ever in doubt) how controlling the … Read More
Rich Danker in the Weekly Standard writes in the guise of a book review about a favorite conservative theme: How a distressed economy in recession, left to its own devices … Read More
The acronym BEPS stands for “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” and the BEPS project is an effort by the OECD to study perceived flaws in international tax rules. The perception that multinational … Read More
When we left this discussion, we had found that a Keynesian economist believes government stimulus spending must be used to kick-start (pump-prime?) the economy out of recession.
Neoclassical economists on the other hand believe care must be taken not to damage an already distressed economy further.
Quite possibly the most consequential ideological conflict within Western nations today is the battle of economic ideas between Keynesian and neoclassical thought. Since Keynesian ideas mandate greater power and a larger … Read More
Flag of the Federal Reserve Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons The Federal Reserve System is one of those government organizations that most people hear about from … Read More
In the very first post in this series I asked how can ISIS challenge the mighty west? And the answer is that they really cannot so long as we are willing to … Read More
Before we seriously engage ISIS in combat (which we haven’t yet), we should think a bit about our capability to do so. My own experiences as a junior artillery officer … Read More
This morning Michael Barone passed on a suggestion from Charles Murray: Government has become so intrusive in our lives and limits so much of our personnel freedoms, particularly economic, that … Read More
Last week some news outlets took note of a big crime wave that began in Baltimore after six Baltimore police officers were indicted for the murder of Freddie Gray [See … Read More
The Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media, Steve Forbes, has just indulged in some wishful thinking, which I share. The main story in the cited post is that Great Britain and mainland … Read More
