The Group of Eight finance ministers will meet this week in Perthshire, Scotland to address various weighty financial decisions that their governments have expropriated from the more-capable hands of their citizens. Thanks in part to the globally choreographed performances of dozens of famous, caring, and would-be-famous-and-caring rock stars, the
President Bush tells us to drive less and limit trips to only the essentials, while the EPA’s EnergyStar program is urging us all to “change a lightbulb” in our homes, from a regular one to a government-approved one, which they claim will save hundreds of millions. You are also supposed to take a pledge : “I pledge to do my part to save energy
As more and more Chinese attain standards of living and wealth that approach what has been known as middle-class in the developed world, they are discovering a “luxury” not previously known to them: chronic disabling illness. I remember when such matters first came to my awareness at the tender age of twelve, on a family visit to Canada. I
Date: August 14, 2006 To: Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, MIT From: Dr. John Q. Colleague [not anyone’s real name] Subj: Scientific Solidarity I’m sorry I had to decline your lunch invitation today. You seemed to know the excuse I gave you was just a cover. Of course, the reality was simply that the tenure committee is considering my application this
This is a story about a barbecue. In the South Florida back yard of a friend who had invited me over for dinner, I saw a most unusual barbecue, but what I learned about it from its owner informed me about a lot more than barbecues. It hinted at the incredible power of freedom — the freedom of people to trade with each other, over distances and
As the tea from the shattered chests of the famed Boston “Tea Party” began to darken the waters of Boston Harbor that night in 1773, a virus infiltrated the moral bloodstream of the embryonic nation that became America. To this day, Americans’ views of such matters remain so poisoned that even voices that otherwise support peace and freedom
The Republican Party has enjoyed undeserved credit among some libertarians for appearing to oppose that program of interference in voluntary transactions known as the Minimum Wage. Now , it appears that a forty-percent increase over the next two years might be OK after all. Has the curmudgeonly Republican Party finally developed a concern for the
I noted with displeasure a bit of statism in AutoWeek for July 14 of a type I normally associate with the larger media that are more tightly bound to the political class. Rich Ceppos, the publisher, reverses his course of the past 30 years or so (if he’s that old) and thanks Ralph Nader for causing cars to be more the way he (Ceppos) wants them to
If you want to buy a book or DVD from the Web site of Writer David Irving, you’ll no longer be able to use your American Express card, and that wasn’t Irving’s idea. It was the idea, evidently, of New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represents the district of Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York. Accusing Irving of neo-Nazism for Irving’s
And now, there are three, and all happen (?) to be MDs. First, there was obstetrician Ron Paul from Texas. Then, as I noted in a recent posting, Dr. Paul Broun of Georgia, also in the House of Representatives with (Ron) Paul. Now, I learn (politics buffs will have known of him for a long time) of Dr. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, vying explicitly (a
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.