Daily Articles

The Hubris of the Central Banker and the Ghosts of Deflation Past, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 Nearly 75 years after the great stock-market crash of 1929, monetary policy is still haunted by the ghost of the Great Depression. The severity of the American stock-market decline during the last three years has again awakened fears among some policymakers that the economic downturn might bring about a deflationary period of collapsing output ...

More Like Them Than We Care to Admit

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2003

President Bush last fall dismissed the Iraqi parliament’s deliberation on and rejection of the UN arms-inspections resolution as “political theater.” As he put it, the parliament is “nothing but a rubber stamp for Saddam Hussein.” That’s funny, coming from a man who has declared he has the power to launch an unprovoked war against Iraq whether the U.S. Congress approves ...

The Draft Is Nothing to Joke About

by Scott McPherson February 1, 2003

In an attempt “to achieve a full sharing of the sacrifice which will be required of the American people if the president chooses to invade Iraq,” Rep. Charles Rangel (D.-N.Y.), has introduced legislation that would require “compulsory military or national service for men and women, ages 18 to ...

Rule of Law versus Unlimited Rule

by James Bovard February 1, 2003

President Bush is fond of reminding Americans of his devotion to the rule of law. On May 3, 2002, he told an audience that he “always” lectures foreign leaders “about the need for there to be rule of law ... and our country is a shining example of that.” Unfortunately, the current U.S. “rule ...

Ending the Anachronistic Korean Commitment, Part 1

by Doug Bandow February 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 The United States has defended South Korea (the Republic of Korea, or ROK) for 50 years. But newly elected ROK President Roh Moo-hyun suggests that his nation might “mediate” in any war between America and North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK). Talk about one-way alliances! The presence of 37,000 troops in ...

Book Review: Creative Destruction

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2003

Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World’s Culture by Tyler Cowen (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002); 179 pages; $24.95. Most people can understand the common-sense logic and benefits from division of labor and international trade. After all, most people understand that there are some things that they are not able to provide for themselves, so they either buy them ...

A Message from FFF’s President

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 31, 2003

To: FFF Friends and Supporters From: Jacob G. Hornberger Subject: FFF Immigration Project Date: January 31, 2003 Whether Americans will admit it or not, American society is now being transformed in one of the most revolutionary fashions in American history. Today, the federal government is assuming and exercising powers that have historically been the hope and dream of communist and ...

Peace Prize to a Man of War

by Sheldon Richman January 27, 2003

The day before former President Jimmy Carter formally received the Nobel Peace Prize, he told a reporter he hoped the honor would spotlight the more favorable things that happened during his term in office, such as the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978. Camp David is widely known. Not so well known is another foreign-policy achievement of ...

Flying the Regulated Skies

by Scott McPherson January 27, 2003

If ever there was cause to believe that the government is not competent to dictate airport and airline security, the recent arrest of a pilot for trying to carry a pistol onto his flight should confirm that suspicion. It also shows again why security ought to be left to individual ...

Bush to Chavez: Just Ignore Your Constitution

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 22, 2003

President Bush’s recent advice to embattled Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez reflects Bush’s cavalier attitude toward constitutional restraints. In the midst of all the political turmoil in Venezuela, Bush, who apparently despises Chavez, aligned himself with his political opponents and called for early presidential elections, with the aim ...

The Growing Triumph of the Second Amendment

by James Ostrowski January 22, 2003

Something happened in Buffalo recently that contradicts the propaganda of those who support “gun control” — the control of law-abiding people who wish to own a gun for protection against the assorted nefarious elements in this world. A citizen actually used a gun, a shotgun, to defend his home ...

Postmodern Government Budgets

by Sheldon Richman January 17, 2003

If President Bush’s bureaucracy were as capable as the bureaucracy in George Orwell’s great novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Lawrence Lindsey, the president’s former economic advisor, would have been airbrushed out of every photograph he appeared in while holding that post, and every reference to his estimate of the cost of the ...