‘Free Enterprise Zone’ Archives
The Way Out of the Oil Crisis
BY BRAD FREGGER "Anyone who tells you that we can drill our way out of this problem doesn't know what they’re talking about or just isn't telling you the truth." President Obama said this to a group of students at the University of Miami; he was talking to them about energy policy. The problem is, he is very wrong. I’m not sure if he knows [...]
A Whiff of Privitization
Mark W. Henrickson, Center for Vision and Values Three decades ago, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher implemented a policy called “privatization” to rejuvenate the moribund economy of the United Kingdom. Like the United States today, the cost of a too-large government was sapping the vitality of the U.K.’s economy. The private sector [...]
A Lesson in Socialism
ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY, THOMAS J. SHELLY As a teacher, I speculate with the pupils as to the probable results if I used the socialistic theory for grading—downgrading the better and upgrading the poorer papers. First, the highly productive pupils-and they are always a minority in school as well as in life—would soon lose all incentive for [...]
Obama’s Crony Capitalist Trap Door
Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation The Obama White House says it hates tax “loopholes,” and the American people abhor them with good reason. They’re the ultimate in unfairness, allowing those in the know to wiggle their way out of playing by the same rules that apply to the rest of us. That’s why, at first glance, the Obama [...]
Despotism, Thy Name is Obamacare
New Common Sense, Heritage Foundation Two years ago, everything about Obamacare was in the future. Recall the revealing comment at the time by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Congress had to pass the legislation in order to see what was in it. Now that the disputed law is in its implementation stage, we are beginning to see what is in it and [...]
China is Celebrating, But What For?
By Phyllis Schlafly Communist China recently celebrated its tenth anniversary of joining the World Trade Organization. The celebration ought to be called China's tenth anniversary of cheating the United States. The globalists talked us into supporting this cozy trade relationship with China by getting U.S. manufacturers and farmers to salivate [...]
Overspending on National Security Threatens National Security
Texas Straight Talk with Ron Paul The administration recently released its 2013 budget proposal, and conservatives are correctly alarmed that it calls for unprecedented spending and continued annual deficits exceeding $1 trillion. But the same conservatives complain that the budget does not devote enough funds to overseas adventurism. I [...]
Morning Bell: Washington, the Indispensable Man of the Revolution
David Azerrad, Heritage Foundation Poor George Washington. His birthday, spontaneously celebrated since the Revolution and formally declared a holiday in 1879, has slowly morphed into the insipid Presidents Day you’ll hear about today. George Washington, the “indispensable man” of the Revolution who was rightly extolled for [...]
The Federal Reserve Rip-Off
By Alan Caruba I have not been kind to Ron Paul and his participation in the Republican primary campaigns and it has taken me a while to understand why he is doing this. It is clear that he wants to be around to influence the Republican platform and the issue about which he is abundantly correct is the Federal Reserve. Anyone taking notice [...]
The Euro: The Folly of Political Currency
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Robert P. Murphy The financial markets continue to surge and collapse based on the latest news from Europe. As of this writing, the big events are Slovakia’s unwillingness to contribute to a bailout fund and the failure of Dexia, a French-Belgian bank with assets of almost $700 billion. As the sovereign debt [...]
It’s Not about Contraception: Negative vs Positive “rights”
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Sheldon Richman When you bake a bad ingredient into a cake, no matter how nicely you decorate it, the cake will still be bad. That’s the lesson to take from the controversy over Obamacare, Catholicism, and contraception. To recap, under Obamacare all employers will be required to arrange for “health [...]
Obamanomics Has Failed
Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation Three years ago today, President Barack Obama signed into law his trillion-dollar stimulus plan, a measure that he promised would save or create 3 million jobs by the end of 2010 and would prevent unemployment from ever going above 8 percent. And though the President today will likely claim that thanks to [...]
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism
George C. Leef, The Freeman What do the following have in common: hungry Venezuelans, starving North Koreans, ecological devastation in the former Soviet Union, and functionally illiterate students in Washington, D.C., high schools? Give up? They are all consequences of socialism. In his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism, [...]
Cut Loose at Fifty: Chapter Fourteen — A Journey Within a Journey
BY CHRIS CLANCY Late June 2006. I had a few free days between the end of teaching and marking exam papers. Much as I hated traveling long distances, I needed a break from Wuhan. I headed for a place called Gulangyu Island. It’s in Fujian province, southwest of Xiamin City. So many students had recommended it — and I wasn’t [...]
Obama’s Friends Win Big in Budget
Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation You don’t need to log on to President Barack Obama’s Facebook page to find out who his friends are, and you don’t need to read tea leaves, gaze into a crystal ball, or consult a psychic to learn where his priorities lie. No, you only have to take a look at his 2013 budget, just released on Monday, to [...]
Employer Speech and Freedom of Association
Charles W. Baird, The Freeman I have argued that forcing a worker to submit to the will of a majority of his colleagues on the question of whether a union will represent him is a violation of that worker’s freedom of association. Association with a union is rightly a matter of individual not collective choice. Here I want to consider [...]
Destroying Value
SHELDON RICHMAN, THE FREEMAN In Cleveland and other American cities homes are being demolished because five years after the housing bust there is nothing better to do with them. Therein lies a lesson in Austrian business cycle theory. In a world of uncertainty, waste—the destruction of value—is inevitable. Human action, which aims to [...]
The Latest Obamacare Overreach
Texas Straight Talk with Ron Paul Many religious conservatives understandably are upset with the latest Obamacare mandate, which will require religious employers (including Catholic employers) to provide birth control to workers receiving healthcare benefits. This mandate includes certain birth control devices that are considered [...]
America’s Green Enemies
BY ALAN CARUBA It was good news that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the nation’s first nuclear power plants on February 9th, clearing the way for the construction of two reactors by Southern Company at its Plant Vogtle site near Atlanta, Georgia. The bad news is that these are the first new nuclear plants since 1978! In a [...]
Disaster Response Restores Confidence in Government?
TYLER WATTS, THE FREEMAN In a memorable episode of the cult-classic cartoon series “The Tick,” the title character is seen in the local café regaling fellow superheroes with his latest adventure, in which he single-handedly stopped an alien plot that would have sucked the earth into a black hole. Skeptical, one of the other heroes [...]
Budget? Why Follow A Budget?
Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation Families and businesses have budgets, yet Washington doesn’t — and it hasn’t for the last three years. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) doesn’t think this major omission is that big of a deal, and the White House has no opinion on the matter. Fortunately, there are leaders in the House who [...]
Contraception: Insuring the Uninsurable
Free Enterprise Zone, Sheldon Richman, The Freeman Update below. Controversy rages over the Obama administration’s mandate that all employers – including Catholic hospitals and universities — include free contraception in their employee health insurance policies. Catholic officials object that since their church forbids [...]
Dependence on Government Highest In History
Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation When John F. Kennedy was President, just over a quarter of federal spending went to fund programs paying for some 21.7 million Americans to be dependent on Uncle Sam. But as high as that spending and dependence on the federal government was then, it has exploded today, with one in five Americans — more [...]
The Snow Plowers’ Petition
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Steven Horwitz The following might have happened in a small college town in upstate New York… In a cold and snowy land there lived the people of the North Country. Some of them made a living by plowing and disposing of the snow that seemed to fall endlessly from the skies between November and March. [...]
Little Green Morons
BY ALAN CARUBA Michael Brune, the Executive Director of the Sierra Club, holds degrees in economics and finance from West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Coming Clean—Breaking America’s Addiction to Oil and Coal”, published in 2008 by the Sierra Club. Recently, Brune bragged that he and the board had turned [...]
Agenda-driven “science” at EPA
Newly proposed air pollution rules impose exorbitant costs for illusory health benefits BY WILLIE SOON AND PAUL DRIESSEN In December 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency released new Clean Air Act “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants.” Once again, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson touted the supposedly huge [...]
Super Bowl Versus Education
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Sandy Ikeda In the spirit of Super Bowl weekend I’d like to deconstruct a Facebook status update that a friend recently posted. It said: “If we took all the money from Super Bowl ads and spent it on educating our kids, we wouldn’t be America.” While the statement is rather oblique, I think [...]
That Jobs Thing Sure Didn’t Last Long
Obama rejects Keystone XL jobs, promotes more wind and solar subsidies. What to do now? BY PAUL DRIESSEN President Obama “is focused like a laser on putting people back to work,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) assured us last fall – echoing repeated statements by President Obama and Administration officials who “can’t [...]
Economics: The Cheerful Science
MARK W. HENDRICKSON, CENTER FOR VISION AND VALUES Chances are, you’ve heard economics referred to as “the dismal science.” That unflattering description is glib and catchy; it is also 100 percent wrong. Let me set the record straight and explain why economics—far from being dismal—is cause for hope, joy, cheer, and [...]
On Reagan’s Birthday, His Legacy Lives On
Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation Today marks President Ronald Reagan’s 101st birthday. Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan made his journey west to Iowa as a radio broadcaster, then on to California to take Hollywood by storm. He crossed America as a spokesman for General Electric, and then — after discovering the import of conservative [...]
