The Fallacies of Another New Deal, Part 3 by William L. Anderson May 1, 2009 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Historians want us to believe that Franklin Roosevelt had nothing to do with causing the massive unemployment and World War II that came in the wake of the Great Depression. Instead, they tell us that Roosevelt simply did the best he could with the hand which he was dealt. No doubt, ...
The Fallacy of Equal Pay for Equal Work by Glenn Jacobs May 1, 2009 We’ve all heard the phrase “equal pay for equal work.” Many of those who habitually repeat this mantra may not realize that it is simply a variation of the discredited labor theory of value (LTV), which is generally associated with Marxian economics. According to the LTV, the value of a product is related to the labor needed ...
The Justice of Pay Discrimination by Michael Tennant May 1, 2009 Recently the upstairs toilet in my house backed up. Unable to budge the clog, my wife called a plumber, who replaced both the seal and some of the inner workings of the toilet. Let’s say, just for the sake of this example, that the plumber charged us $200 for the repair. Now suppose the next day the downstairs toilet had needed ...
Selling Short the Short-Seller by Gregory Bresiger May 1, 2009 It happens every financial crash. Or in every prolonged bear market. Or almost any time things go bad in the financial markets. An evil person must be found. Oftentimes, the scapegoat is the short-seller. Today the short-seller is like Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. It’s ...
A Free Market in Labor by George Leef May 1, 2009 Labor Economics from a Free Market Perspective: Employing the Unemployable by Walter Block (World Scientific, 2008); 393 pages. The first time I ever heard of Walter Block was in 1980, when a faculty colleague showed me his copy of Block’s book Defending the Undefendable. Knowing of my anarcho-capitalist views, my colleague said ...
FDR’s Social Security Paradox by Jim Powell April 30, 2009 If Social Security is so wonderful, why were people forced to participate, why was it set up as a monopoly, and why did it dump ever-larger costs onto the backs of future generations? There never was a popular demand for Social Security, even during the Great Depression. Few Americans were ...
Government Is the Systemic Risk by Sheldon Richman April 28, 2009 The Obama administration and congressional leaders assure us that the government can protect us from the “systemic risk” posed by big banks, insurance companies, and hedge funds. But who will protect us from the government? In light of all we’ve learned about the national government’s conduct in both domestic and ...
Jackie Chan’s Misguided Concept of Freedom by Scott McPherson April 28, 2009 “He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” — Thomas Paine Of all the great things ever said in regard to human freedom, the above quotation makes perhaps ...
CIA Torture Began In Afghanistan Eight Months before Justice Department Approval by Andy Worthington April 27, 2009 Last December, in a typically bullish defense of the Bush administration’s conduct in the “war on terror,” Vice President Dick Cheney stated, On the question of so-called “torture,” we don’t do torture, we never have. It’s not something that this administration subscribes to. e proceeded very cautiously; we checked, we had the Justice Department issue the requisite opinions in ...
Milton Friedman Was Wrong on Vouchers by Jacob G. Hornberger April 24, 2009 In an article I wrote in September 1990 entitled “Letting Go of Socialism,” I pointed out how public schooling is a model of a socialistic program. I also addressed the issue of school vouchers: But the real tragedy is that so many freedom devotees in America also won’t let go ...
End the Cuban Embargo! by Sheldon Richman April 23, 2009 Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro have nothing to talk about. While they do their diplomatic dance, the Cuban people are suffering because of the American trade embargo. It should end forthwith. The idea that trade between Americans and Cubans must await an American president’s say-so is an insult ...
Ten Terrible Truths About The CIA Torture Memos, Part 4 by Andy Worthington April 23, 2009 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, analyzes ten particularly disturbing facts to emerge from the four memos, purporting to justify the use of torture by the CIA, which were issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in August 2002 and May ...