‘Free Enterprise Zone’ Archives
Stop the Bad Guys
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Donald Boudreaux It’s not too much of a simplification to say that modern American conservatives believe the national government to be ignorant, bumbling, and corrupt when it meddles in the U.S. economy, but sagacious, sure-footed, and righteous when it meddles in foreign-government affairs. Nor are [...]
The Myth of Global Warming
A primer on the myth of global warming and the international forces behind it. By Robert F. Beaudine In 1908, an amateur archaeologist discovered old bones in a gravel pit in England. In 1912, the scientific community trumpeted this evidence, called Piltdown man, as the missing link between man and apes, proving that Darwin’s theory [...]
Dumbing Down the Charge of Rape
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Wendy McElroy On April 4 the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) instructed every college and university that accepts federal funds directly or through student loans – that is, virtually every institution of higher learning in the country – to use the “preponderance of [...]
Let’s destroy another crop — T.F. Stern
By T.F. Stern, If you’ve been locked away in a closet of late, there was a deadly E. coli outbreak in Europe which sickened hundreds and is linked to the deaths of at least 22 people. Last week cucumbers were blamed and folks immediately stopped buying cucumbers. Over the weekend bean sprouts were said to have started the [...]
Slave Labor and Intellectual Property
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Sheldon Richman The libertarian challenge to the legitimacy of “intellectual property” has created some confusion. It’s understandable. For one thing, there’s an apparent inconsistency: If one favors property rights in tangible things, why not in intangibles? Pro-property IP opponents reply that [...]
Unemployment Goes Up, Obama Declares Victory
By Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation Unemployment in the United States increased again last month to 9.1 percent, with the Obama economy adding only 54,000 jobs—the fewest in eight months. Today’s terrible jobs report is much worse than expected. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had grimly predicted 160,000 new jobs and an [...]
Liberty and the Power of Ideas
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Lawrence W. Reed A belief that I stress again and again is that we are at war—not a physical, shooting war, but nonetheless a war that is fully capable of becoming just as destructive and just as costly. The battle for the preservation and advancement of liberty is a battle not against personalities [...]
Power and the Market
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Steven Horwitz A running theme of these columns over the last 18 months has been how we libertarians communicate, particularly with the contemporary left. We often talk past each other because we work from different analytical frameworks; the questions and issues we think important do not always [...]
Qualified Residential Mortgage Regulations Threaten the Housing Market
By David C. John, Heritage Foundation The housing market is still weak, and federal regulators are considering a regulation that could make matters even worse. Known as the Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM) rule, the draft rule could have the effect of requiring many home buyers to have at least a 20 percent down payment in order to [...]
The Debt Is Not a Game Mr. President
Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation Well, President Obama asked for it. And last night he got it in grand fashion—a “clean vote” on raising the nation’s debt limit, free of any of the desperately needed spending cuts that Americans are demanding, conservatives support, but liberals abhor. And by a 318–97 margin, the House of [...]
Local Food Makes Strange Dining Companions
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Paul Schwennesen I make my living at farmers’ markets and know my core clientele well. It generally doesn’t sport “Gun Control Is Hitting Your Target” t-shirts, so it struck me when such a one showed up at our booth. In answer to my teasing, the wearer asked a telling question: “What could be [...]
The Unstimulated Obama Economy
By Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation Newsflash from The New York Times: President Barack Obama’s stimulus did not work. No, the Times doesn’t say that in so many words, but in an op-ed this morning, the paper laments the sputtering economy and the fact that Washington just isn’t doing enough to help the economy grow. The problem, of [...]
“Big Meat” and Big Government
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Paul Schwennesen Ranchers are a fairly independent bunch. We don’t like overweening authority and prefer to fend for ourselves. We also find few things more objectionable than sitting endlessly indoors. Nevertheless, 2,000 of us did just that several months ago in the ballroom of Colorado State [...]
Enabling a Future American Dictator
Texas Straight Talk with Ron Paul These are truly troubling days for liberty in the United States. Last week the 60 day deadline for the president to gain congressional approval for our military engagement in Libya under the War Powers Resolution came and went. The media scarcely noticed. The bombings continued. We had a hearing on [...]
Money and Inflation: What’s Going On in the World?
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Gerald P. O'Driscoll Are America and the world at risk for another inflationary episode similar to the 1970s and early 1980s? Or do current low rates of inflation portend low inflation for the foreseeable future? David Wessel revisited this question in his “Capital” column in the February 24, 2011, [...]
Sustainable Development or Sustainable Freedom
By Henry Lamb Sustainable development is based on a set of principles found in Our Common Future, the report of the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development. Sustainable freedom is based on a set of principles found in the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress July 4, 1776. Sustainable development is [...]
Lawless Government
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Sheldon Richman Everyone pays lip service to the rule of law. Indeed I’ve never heard of anyone rejecting it as undesirable. (It has been called impossible under prevailing circumstances but that is a different point.) So why is the principle so flagrantly violated with almost no public outrage? Take [...]
Ten Myths of Ryan’s House Budget Plan
By Brian Riedl, Robert Moffit, PhD, Rominia Boccia Runaway spending and deficits continue to grow unabated in part because any attempts to rein them in are relentlessly demagogued by defenders of big government. The latest example is the budget recently authored by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI) and passed by the House [...]
Had Enough Yet?
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Sheldon Richman Regarding the looming fiscal disaster, it’s best to keep one’s eyes on the forest and not get lost in the trees. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the numbers, but one thing looks certain: Most everyone understands the current situation is unsustainable in the ruling [...]
Paper-Cut Postal Service Gets Wrong Kind of Band-Aid
James Gattuso, Heritage Foundation Is the end near for the U.S. Postal Service? Things certainly look grim at USPS, which has suffered four straight years of red ink. Last week came more bad news, with postal officials reporting a $2.2 billion dollar loss for the second quarter. Perhaps more disconcerting, they predicted that by [...]
Let them eat cake — T.F. Stern
By T. F. Stern, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said something the other day which identified one of the many problems in government, pay raises for the elite during recessionary times. Reid got his nose out of joint; it seems Interior Secretary Ken Salazar had his $20,000 raise held up by Senator David Vitter, a pro-drilling [...]
Saving the American Dream by Cutting Debt, Taxes and Spending
Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation It might not be front-page news in the mainstream media, but according to a new poll, a large majority of Americans are alarmed at the prospect of U.S. debt continuing to grow past its already astronomical $14.3 trillion limit. They’re right to be worried, as America’s out-of-control spending takes the [...]
Boombustology: A Review
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Warren Gibson These days commentators near and far are announcing booms and bubbles in Treasury securities, gold, China – perhaps even a bubbles. Vikram Mansharamani is in the China camp, but his arguments stand out from the others. If you can get past the title of his book – Boombustology – you [...]
Politics, Poverty, Principles
New Common Sense, Heritage Foundation When The Catholic University of America announced that Speaker of the House John Boehner would give the 2011 commencement address, a collection of faculty members sent him a letter chastising his failure to recognize “important aspects of Catholic teaching,” specifically, “the desperate needs of the [...]
Competition and Monopoly: A Refresher
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Lawrence Reed “Gym Now Stresses Cooperation, Not Competition,” blared a headline in the New York Times a decade ago. The story was about an elementary school where “confrontational” games, team sports, and elimination rounds were changed or scrapped so that differences between students’ athletic [...]
Of Fallible Judges and Rogue Empires: Laband
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, David N. Laband There is a striking similarity between blown calls by umpires in baseball and blown calls by judges in our legal system. We now know, unambiguously, that umpires make mistakes—sometimes excruciatingly costly ones. According to baseball purists, those mistakes “are part of the game.” [...]
Minimum Wage Reality in America
By Ericka Andersen, Heritage.org Economist Walter Williams knows that minimum wage laws are hurting poor, African-American teenagers and his new book, “Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?”, attempts to dispel the myth that higher minimum wage laws help. Simple economics recognizes that if the price of labor [...]
Medicare’s Deteriorating Financial Condition
By Bob Moffit, Heritage Foundation The just released 2011 Medicare trustees report does not contain any big surprises. Much of what the trustees say in this report they have said before: Medicare poses enormous challenges for patients and taxpayers alike, and its financial condition continues a downward slide. Some key [...]
End the IMF
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Sheldon Richman It’s a topsy-turvy world. “Anarchists” protest cuts in government spending, while “socialists” live in the lap of luxury, including $3,000-a-night Manhattan hotel suites, working, in at least one celebrated case, to impose corporatist-flavored “neoliberalism” on the troubled [...]
NLRB Comes to Big Labor’s Defense
By Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation It’s hard to imagine Uncle Sam telling Walt Disney where to make movies or McDonald’s how many hamburgers to make, but if you take a look at the case of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) versus Boeing, you’ll see that the federal government is trying to do just that: dictate where and [...]
