No Immigration Trouble at the Check-Out Counter by Scott McPherson September 22, 2006 To hear anti-immigrant types and their spokesmen tell it, any intelligent American only needs to look around to see all the trouble that immigrants cause us. A heterogeneous society just won’t work, they say. Too many problems with language differences and clashing cultures. And then there’s the burden on the ...
What Crisis? by Scott McPherson September 18, 2006 According to the Washington Post, there’s a new crisis brewing in American health care. Not one related to rising costs, substandard service, rationing of services, or any other problem stemming from government’s micro-management of the health-care field, but rather one involving an alleged conflict of consciences. A story in the July 16 issue of ...
Bush’s Evasion by Sheldon Richman September 15, 2006 Five years after 9/11, as things increasingly sour in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush’s public appearances get increasingly more pathetic. During Bush’s August news conference a persistent reporter wouldn’t let him get away with his claim that Iraq is the central front on the so-called war on terror. “What did Iraq ...
A Real Free Market Benefits Workers by Sheldon Richman September 6, 2006 Hands are wringing over bleak reports that despite increased productivity, workers are falling behind: real median income — adjusted for government-caused inflation — is said to be falling. Meanwhile, corporate profits are skyrocketing, and the wealthiest are doing fine. In other words, the benefits of economic growth are said to ...
The Federal War on Gold, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 2006 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt revolutionized the monetary system of the United States and set the nation on the road of inflationary plunder that has characterized other nations in history. The actions of these two presidents also provide a textbook example for understanding the animosity and antipathy that ...
Beware Income-Tax Casuistry, Part 2 by Sheldon Richman September 1, 2006 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The United States got its first income tax during the War Between the States, again demonstrating that war harms ordinary people in more ways than militarily. During any war government becomes an especially voracious consumer of the people’s resources and dissent is stifled or suppressed. So it is ...
Hidden Government by Sheldon Richman September 1, 2006 Americans pride themselves on “self-government.” But when significant policies are undertaken without their notice, much less consent, self-government is a cruel hoax. Reporting by Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker and other sources indicate that the Bush administration actively helped the Israeli government plan an attack on Lebanon. When it ...
The Perils of Emergency Power by James Bovard September 1, 2006 The New York Times reported on June 23 that President Bush invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify warrantless searches of Americans and other peoples financial data. According to Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey, the U.S. government may have conducted hundreds of thousands of warrantless searches of Americans and others personal financial data. The Bush administration used broad ...
The New Deal and Roosevelt’s Seizure of Gold: A Legacy of Theft and Inflation, Part 2 by William L. Anderson September 1, 2006 Part 1 | Part 2 The monetary system of the United States at the time of the Depression could not sustain inflation very long because the country was on a gold standard. If people sensed that the government was printing too many paper dollars, by law they could redeem those dollars from the government’s store of gold. Moreover, ...
Monopolies versus the Free Market, Part 1 by Gregory Bresiger September 1, 2006 Part 1 | Part 2 Market domination that has been achieved in the private sector through efficiency and consumer satisfaction is a phenomenon of a free-market economy. Even without any competition, such a business can never take customers for granted because of the possibility that new entrants will ...
The Eminent-Domain Origin of Shenandoah National Park by Bart Frazier September 1, 2006 The establishment of Shenandoah National Park in 1926 is one of the greatest abuses of eminent domain in our country’s history. With the Commonwealth of Virginia condemning the entire area and removing more than 450 families, many by force, the park would eventually encompass 196,000 acres. After people were evicted, Virginia transferred the property to the federal government and ...
A Century of Interventionism and Regime Change by Anthony Gregory September 1, 2006 Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer (New York: Times Books, 2006); 400 pages; $27.50. Since September 11, the U.S. government has overthrown the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq. Most Americans appear to think of these actions as defensible in principle ...