Bailout Robbery by Jacob G. Hornberger November 24, 2008 Given all the talk about bailing out U.S. automakers, Citigroup, AIG, American banks, and others, the focus has primarily been on whether the bailouts will be successful, at least in terms of resolving the economic and financial crises facing America. That’s the basic rationale government officials provide for bailing out these companies. We should, however, ...
More CIA Killings, Lies, and Cover-Ups by Jacob G. Hornberger November 21, 2008 In June 2001 I wrote an article entitled “Drug-War Killings in Peru,” which condemned the CIA’s participation in the drug-war killings of a 35-year-old missionary named Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old baby Charity. They had been flying in a small private plane in Peru when CIA officials advised the Peruvian military that the plane might be smuggling drugs. ...
Repeal Insider-Trading Laws by Jacob G. Hornberger November 20, 2008 Two readers have sent me emails objecting to my blog post yesterday, “Free Mark Cuban and Abolish the SEC,” in which I opposed the SEC’s action against Mark Cuban for supposedly violating insider-trading laws. The readers said that insider trading is fraudulent and unfair. Fraud involves the intentional misrepresentation of a material fact or the intentional omission of a material ...
Free Mark Cuban and Abolish the SEC by Jacob G. Hornberger November 19, 2008 Billionaire Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has been targeted by the SEC for insider trading. According to the SEC’s complaint, in 2003 Cuban was the owner of about 6 percent of the stock of a company named Momma.com. An executive of the company advised Cuban that the company was going to ...
The Practicality of Libertarianism by Jacob G. Hornberger November 18, 2008 One of the criticisms sometimes directed toward libertarianism is that our philosophy is impractical because it fails to provide solutions to the woes produced by socialism and interventionism. For example, consider the current financial crisis. People ask, “What is the libertarian solution to the financial crisis?” If libertarians respond, “We don’t have a solution,” ...
Cancel the Missile Project in Eastern Europe by Jacob G. Hornberger November 17, 2008 Among the first things that President Obama will have to decide when he assumes office is whether to continue President Bush’s and the Pentagon’s plans to install missile interceptors in Eastern Europe. Let’s hope that he rejects those plans. Otherwise, all that will be accomplished will be to increase tensions with Russia, which, not ...
Economic Liberty and Civil Liberty by Jacob G. Hornberger November 14, 2008 We had another great time at the second meeting of our Economic Liberty Lecture Series last night. 125 students and non-students came together for an evening of pizza, a movie, socializing, and a great talk by James Bovard, a policy advisor at The Future of Freedom Foundation. What was interesting is that many of ...
The Conservative Malaise by Jacob G. Hornberger November 13, 2008 I suspect that the malaise that has afflicted the conservative movement is not simply due to the defeat of John McCain and Sarah Palin. I think that their despondency goes much deeper than an electoral defeat. My hunch is that their depression is much more owing to a sense of serious discomfort arising from ...
Is the Chinese New Deal “Free Enterprise” Too? by Jacob G. Hornberger November 11, 2008 The Chinese government is placing many American statists in a very interesting position. It has unveiled a “stimulus plan” involving a massive expenditure of $586 billion dollars of government money. Sounds familiar, uh? As the Washington Post pointed out yesterday in a front-page article, economists are comparing the Chinese plan to the New Deal, which was ...
Crossing the Rubicon, Revisited by Jacob G. Hornberger November 10, 2008 In July 2003, I wrote an article entitled “Crossing the Rubicon,” which addressed what the federal government was doing to a man named Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar who was residing in the United States. Two years later, in March 2005, I published a follow-up article on the al-Marri case: “Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri: ...
Conservative Soul-Searching by Jacob G. Hornberger November 7, 2008 The debate over the future of the GOP is beginning. Already, there is a spate of articles written by conservatives calling for a return of the Republican Party to its traditional mantra of “free enterprise and limited government.” These conservatives are arguing that the reason that Republicans were so soundly defeated in the recent ...
How About Some Real Change in Foreign Policy? by Jacob G. Hornberger November 6, 2008 The worldwide outpouring of support for Barack Obama brings to mind the worldwide outpouring of support for the American people after 9/11. That post-9/11 support didn’t last for long. It disappeared with George W. Bush’s war on terrorism, invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, torture and sex abuse of detainees, kidnappings and renditions, attacks on ...
