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In his inauguration address, President George W. Bush exhorted Americans to act as “citizens” and to demonstrate the virtues necessary for good citizenship.  Of course, the usual crowd thought that was great, especially following the narcissistic presidency of Bill Clinton.  However, maybe it is time to look again at these demands made by the

In his last hours as President of the United States, Bill Clinton issued 140 pardons to various felons.  However, none was more controversial than the pardon extended to Marc Rich, who fled the United States before ever facing trial.  Critics from the editorial pages of the leftist New York Times and the conservative Townhall columnists page have

When we last left the Socialist Republic of California, someone had switched off the lights. According to the latest news, someone has switched them on again as the Democrat-dominated California State Assembly has supposedly “solved” the state’s electricity problems.  Like so many other “solutions” that come from government, this one further

To no one’s surprise, much of the debate regarding President George W. Bush’s “tax cut” proposals center upon “fairness.”  On one hand, proponents argue that the benefits of lower taxation will fall disproportionately to those folks who pay the most taxes – and that happens to be those with the highest incomes (surprise, surprise).  On the other

The latest figures coming from government statisticians reveal that a few problems may be coming down the road.  For many years, Americans have been told that we can have easy money from Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve and no perceptible inflation, all at the same time.  While the whole thing was a lie from the beginning, there was at least the

While Congress and the media debate the merits of President George W. Bush’s tax cut proposal, a much more interesting economic event is occurring across the Pacific Ocean. Japan, it seems (formerly known as “Japan, Inc.”) has been a decade-long experiment in Keynesian Economic Theory, and if the results do not bury Lord Keynes even deeper in his

As the stock markets continue to fall and economic indicators point toward a recession, Democratic politicians are reviving charges that President George W. Bush has been “talking down” the economy. My first reaction to such charges, other than to dismiss them as nonsense, is to wonder whether or not politicians ought to be accusing their rivals

While in college during the early 1970s, many of my professors gave me a large dose of gloom and doom about the future. In a religion class, we read Robert Heilbroner’s An Inquiry into the Human Prospect,  in which the good professor predicted that the end of industrial society was imminent because the world was quickly going to run out of

With the news Wednesday of the Federal Reserve’s one-half percent cut in its discount rate, the stock markets went ballistic. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by just under 400 points, and even the recently anemic NASDAQ index ended the day above 2,000 points.  By the time you have finished reading this article, it is likely that the

Review of The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else  , by Hernando De Soto. New York: Basic Books, 2000.  ISBN 0-465-01614-6, $27.50 (hardback). Last year, my wife and I traveled to Guatemala City in Central America to adopt a baby girl.  While Guatemala City is a bustling, well-planned metropolis with