Freedom Daily Archive

Lessons for America from Germany’s Hyperinflation, Part 1

by Jim Powell May 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 Many Americans may be inclined to assume that Germans were barbaric because they supported Hitler, and whatever happened there couldn’t possibly apply to the United States. But the Germans have had much more in common with Americans than we might realize. Germans were educated and industrious. Germany had world-class universities. Germans long led the world ...

The Anti-Fed Revolution

by Anthony Gregory May 1, 2010

End the Fed by Ron Paul (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009), 212 pages. Through his 2008 presidential campaign, Ron Paul managed to make monetary policy a national political issue. For nearly a century it had been a relatively obscure topic, and throughout my lifetime respectable opinion considered it a fringe inclination even to be interested in it. ...

The CIA and the Assassination of John Kennedy, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Even though the CIA was the premier government agency in the world whose expertise was assassination, coups, and regime change, it does not necessarily follow that it employed its talents and abilities here in the United States in November 1963. But it’s an important factor that should have been considered ...

Haiti Needs Freedom

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2010

The heartbreaking devastation of Haiti shows again that as deadly as Mother Nature can be when acting alone, she is far more lethal when she conspires with poverty. The immediate cause of the deaths of the hundreds of thousands Haitians was the earthquake, but most of those people might be alive today if Haiti weren’t poor. And why is ...

The Fraud of Big Picture Thinking

by James Bovard April 1, 2010

Politicians, pundits, and others perennially invoke the “Big Picture.” Recognizing the role of the Big Picture is vital to understanding how contemporary democracies are going off the rail. The Big Picture provides preemptive exoneration for almost anyone who wants to kowtow and cheerlead for political power. Fifteen years ago, there was a hullabaloo to denounce “politically correct” mandates and imperatives. ...

The Disaster of Government-Run Businesses, Part 2

by Jim Powell April 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 In the 1870s, the Japanese had many government-run businesses — among them, mining, shipbuilding, railways, and silk production. According to economic historians Johannes Hirschmeier and Tsunehiko Yui, they “were a heavy burden on government finance, and on the whole were running in the red.” The government couldn’t even make money with silk production, something ...

John Maynard Keynes, Defunct Economist

by Edmund Contoski April 1, 2010

John Maynard Keynes, who rose to prominence in the 1930s, wrote, “The ideas of economists and political philosophers ... are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men ... are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority ... are usually distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of ...

Unnatural Law, Natural Tyranny, Part 1

by William L. Anderson April 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 A typical federal courtroom scene has the trappings of ages gone by. The judge wears a black robe, everyone stands when he enters, the bailiff utters the “Oyez” sayings, and much of the language is the same as what might have been said two centuries ago in an American or ...

The CIA and the Assassination of John Kennedy, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Among the reasons the CIA should have been made a specific target of a criminal investigation in the John Kennedy assassination were: (1) the CIA was the world’s premier expert in assassination and coups; and (2) the CIA was in a partnership with one of the most crooked and murderous private ...

Barack Obama: No Radicalism to Be Found

by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2010

A portion of the American people believe that President Barack Obama is a left-wing radical bent on transforming U.S. society in his image. There’s an easy way to dispel that misconception: Look at what he does and what he says. In domestic affairs Obama has stayed within the narrow establishment zone. The health-care “debate,” for example, has featured no radical ...

The Folly of Blindly Trusting the Government

by James Bovard March 1, 2010

Democracy breeds gullibility. Lord Bryce observed in 1921, “State action became less distrusted the more the State itself was seen to be passing under popular control.” The rise of democracy made it much easier for politicians to convince people that government posed no threat, because they automatically controlled its actions. The result is that the brakes on government power ...

The Rule of Law, Part 2

by Ridgway K. Foley Jr. March 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 Note well that any contention that the United States of America was born out of a well-developed and unbridled libertarian philosophy does not square with historical fact. Ordinary candor and historical precision compel recognition that not all residents in the 13 colonies (or even a majority of those hardy men) would describe or agree ...