Obama’s Public-Works Folly by Jacob G. Hornberger January 5, 2009 Americans might well rue the day when they trusted the federal government to spend the nation into prosperity. It just isn’t going to happen. All that Barack Obama’s massive public-works spending spree is going to accomplish is either more debt added to the national debt or more depreciation in the value of the dollar, ...
Why Trust Big Brother on Economics? by Jacob G. Hornberger January 2, 2009 Liberals befuddle me. When it comes to matters of privacy and civil liberties, they correctly exclaim against trusting Big Brother. Yet, when it comes to matters relating to economic liberty and well-being, they take an opposite tact and exclaim that people should have no reservations about trusting Big Brother. One of the fascinating characteristics ...
Hornberger’s Blog, January 2009 by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2009 Friday, January 30, 2009 Jail for Businessmen, a Pass for Torturers by Jacob G. Hornberger Francesco Insolia must soon report to a federal penitentiary to begin serving a one-year sentence. His crime? Hiring illegal aliens from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in his leather-goods company in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He has also been ordered to pay $1 million to the federal government. Meanwhile, ...
Stop Foreign Aid to Israel (and Everywhere Else) by Jacob G. Hornberger December 31, 2008 I can already hear the pro-empire, pro-intervention crowd making their announcement after a terrorist attack in the United States by a victim of the Israeli bombing in Gaza: “The attack had nothing to do with anger and hatred arising from the unconditional financial and military aid that the U.S. government has furnished the Israeli ...
Socialism, Taxation, and Gold Seizures by Jacob G. Hornberger December 30, 2008 Those Americans with socialist propensities, including, of course, Barack Obama, are surely having their hearts warmed by recent actions of fellow traveler Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected dictator of Venezuela. Faced with falling oil revenues, Chavez has just announced the government seizure of several privately operated gold concessions, which, he pointed out, are ...
Private Property, Freedom, and Prosperity by Jacob G. Hornberger December 29, 2008 Two separate articles in yesterday’s New York Times reflect the meaning of private property. One article was about white farmers in Zimbabwe and the other was about a woman in Seattle named Edith Macefield. In Zimbabwe the government has been taking farms away from white owners and giving them to black citizens. When one of the ...
Bernard Madoff: Another Regulation Success Story by Jacob G. Hornberger December 19, 2008 The $50 billion fraud allegedly committed by Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff has got to be false. After all, we’ve got the SEC. Right? It’s been in existence since the 1930s. Right? Its purpose is to ensure that the American people are protected from fraud in the financial markets. Right? Well, then how is it ...
Why Not Treat the Shoe-Thrower As an Enemy Combatant? by Jacob G. Hornberger December 18, 2008 After being severely beaten by government officials in the free nation of Iraq, Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi man who threw his shoes at President Bush, is being charged with the crime of attacking a head of state, a crime that entails a possible prison sentence of 7 to 15 years.
Our Federal Daddy-God by Jacob G. Hornberger December 17, 2008 A short paragraph in an editorial in today’s New York Times provides an excellent symptom of the cancer that infects the body politic in America. The editorial addresses Caroline Kennedy’s bid to replace Hillary Clinton as New York’s U.S. senator. The paragraph reads as follows: “Another question being asked quietly among government and business types ...
Did the Shoe Thrower Hate America for Its Freedom and Values? by Jacob G. Hornberger December 16, 2008 Notice an important aspect of the shoe-throwing incident in Iraq: No one is suggesting that the reason that the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush did so because of his hatred for America’s “freedom and values.” That was the line that Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other U.S. officials immediately issued and repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseam ...
Democracy, American-Style by Jacob G. Hornberger December 15, 2008 American schoolchildren are receiving some valuable lessons in democracy, American-style. There is the matter of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is accused of soliciting bribes in return for the appointment of a U.S. Senator to replace Barack Obama. I really don’t see what all the hub-hub is about. After all, bribery is the name of the game ...
Is Mexico’s Drug War a Model for the U.S.? by Jacob G. Hornberger December 12, 2008 Throughout the decades-long history of the drug war, its proponents have had a favorite line when confronted with the abject failure of the war: “Well, it really hasn’t been waged at all. If they really fought it hard, we would have won long ago.” Thus, no matter how many people were incarcerated, no matter how ...
