Corporate Welfare

Instead of trying to abolish failure via bailouts, we should let markets work, let failure run its course, and be so much the wiser for it.

What we need are real lasting tax cuts and a corresponding movement of spending out of government and into the private sector.

The economic power of private business organizations, even the so-called "private tyrannies," is justified by the fact that the use of economic power involves no initiation of force against any other person or their property.

By now we should all be ready to move beyond hysteria, get a grip on reality, and begin thinking about how to repeal everything the government has done during the past six weeks.

Even if GM itself was unable to survive bankruptcy, the resources freed from its grasp could be hugely beneficial to other automotive companies that make products that American consumers value more.

Presented to the Auburn University Economics Club, Auburn, Alabama, on 14 October 2008.

For the economy and country to begin healing, we need capital, credibility and authority to move from the wasteful to the productive. The power elite, predictably, is attempting to achieve the exact opposite.

Personally, I am still a long-term optimist, but as a student of the Depression I know that Congress and the executive can do much damage before the long term gets here, and indeed, they can delay its arrival indefinitely.

The Paulson Plan is one more step in the socialization of America, but it is also a great bank robbery.

At the root of the problem are not mortgage-backed assets as such but the Fed's boom-bust policies.