Daily Articles

Paul Ryan: Would-Be Savior of the Welfare-Warfare State

by Sheldon Richman August 15, 2012

Paul Ryan may be the conservative’s conservative, but understand what that means: He’s out to save the welfare/warfare state from its own intrinsic unsustainability. He’s no small-government man. Ryan’s budget blueprint, at best, wouldn’t balance the budget for three decades and meanwhile would add trillions in debt. He would only slow President Obama’s planned spending increases. If Ryan got his ...

Sick Economics

by Laurence M. Vance August 14, 2012

Second only to their salary, all employees love and depend on their fringe benefits. Fringe benefits can take the form of paid time-off for breaks, vacations, jury duty, personal reasons, maternity leave, or illness. They can be in the form of discounted or fully paid insurance for health, life, or disability. Participation in a pension or retirement program is a ...

The MAD Myth

by Tim Kelly August 10, 2012

Cold War dogma asserts that mutually assured destruction, however troubling, has worked in averting a nuclear war between the United States and Russia. Lending superficial credence to this idea is the fact the world has not yet been incinerated in a nuclear conflagration. This fact has been cited as vindication of the U.S. government's decision to amass a huge stockpile ...

Labor Outsourcing Is Not the Problem

by Sheldon Richman August 10, 2012

President Obama thinks he can score points on Mitt Romney by pointing out that companies acquired by Bain Capital outsourced jobs to other countries. The implication is that there is something unpatriotic in contracting for foreign labor. That is a strange position in this era of globalization, which Obama claims to favor. Romney, a self-described champion of free enterprise, defended ...

Organ Donor Revolution — or Revolt?

by Wendy McElroy August 9, 2012

On June 25, the Institute for Justice (IJ) announced a life-saving development. It is now legal to compensate people for supplying bone marrow to those with cancer or blood diseases. The impressive victory took close to three years of legal maneuvering, and yet some commentators expressed the immediate hope that organ donations might open up in a ...

The Lessons of Aurora

by Benedict D. LaRosa August 8, 2012

In the wake of the July 20, 2012, massacre at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater, where a gunman killed 12 people and wounded most of the 58 injured, the debate over gun control flared up anew. The Aurora movie theater was a gun-free zone in that patrons were prohibited by local law and by theater policy from carrying concealed (or ...

The “Cans” and “Shoulds” of Gun Control

by Laurence M. Vance August 7, 2012

Liberals, Democrats, and other advocates of gun control are so predictable. The bodies weren’t even buried after the horrific shooting last month in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, at the Century 16 Theater in a shopping mall before some liberal pundits and politicians began calling for more-draconian gun laws. The suspect, James Holmes, killed 12 persons and wounded 58 with ...

Obama, Romney Are Reckless on Iran

by Sheldon Richman August 6, 2012

You will strain your eyes looking for a significant difference between President Obama’s and Mitt Romney’s positions on Iran and the prospects of an Israeli attack on the Islamic republic. Both say “all options are on the table.” All. That includes a full-scale military attack with even nuclear weapons. This isn’t alarmism. Iran’s facilities are undoubtedly well protected. No ...

Ten Years of Torture: Marking the 10th Anniversary of John Yoo’s “Torture Memos”

by Andy Worthington August 3, 2012

Exactly 10 years ago, on August 1, 2002, Jay S. Bybee, who at the time was the assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, signed two memos (see here and here) that will forever be known as the “torture memos.” Also identified as the “Bybee memos,” because of Bybee’s signature on ...

Who Should Feed the Children?

by Laurence M. Vance August 1, 2012

Eating is one of the most basic of human instincts. It is a daily necessity. It is essential to life. It doesn’t need to be learned. It is the first thing a newborn baby wants to do. It is a common occurrence. It is also a pleasant experience that often serves as the basis for entertainment, fellowship, dating, and ...

The Market and Uncertainty

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2012

Relying on the mass media for accurate economic analysis is like relying on a mobile home for shelter from a tornado. It’s a rather bad idea. Two items in the news demonstrate this beyond a shadow of a doubt: JPMorgan Chase’s big loss last spring and the role of private equity in an economy. It’s widely believed that JPMorgan Chase’s ...

The Federal Wetlands War, Part 2

by James Bovard August 1, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In August 1993, the Clinton administration announced a new policy that tightened the federal noose over private lands. The White House Office on Environmental Policy (echoing a 1988 George H.W. Bush campaign promise) proclaimed a national goal of no net loss of wetlands, creating a presumption ...