Daily Articles

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 36: Free Banking and the Competitive Limits to Monetary Expansion

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 ...

Drugs and Politicians

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 1999

What do you call it when one person threatens violence against another unless he obeys? How about "extortion"? Consider this sentence from the New York Times on Christmas day: "Brandishing new data showing that the drug industry earns higher profits and pays lower taxes than most other ...

Custom-Made Abuses at Customs

by James Bovard December 1, 1999

You know it is going to be a bad day when your Customs inspector starts putting on latex gloves. A rising floodtide of scandal is engulfing the Customs Service. Press reports across the nation are trumpeting cases of Customs agents taking bribes and abusing their power. A Treasury Department investigation is looking at the agency's ...

What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen

by Fredric Bastiat December 1, 1999

Have you ever heard anyone say: "Taxes are the best investment; they are a life-giving dew. See how many families they keep alive, and follow in imagination their indirect effects on industry; they are infinite, as extensive as life itself." The advantages that government ...

Liberty and Virtue: Invaluable and Inseparable, Part 1

by Doug Bandow December 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 There is no quicker means of raising a skeptical eye among many conservatives and libertarians alike than to endorse both liberty and virtue. Many people who consider freedom the preeminent political objective perceive support for virtue to be an implicit call for restrictive new laws. ...

The Virtue of Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 1999

Christmas is the perfect time of year to reflect on such things as freedom and virtue. People give presents to their friends and loved ones, donate food and clothing to the poor, and make contributions to their churches and other worthy causes. And they do it all voluntarily. No one forces them to do so. Do you ever wonder how ...

Morality and Social Security

by Rev. Robert A. Sirico December 1, 1999

It is widely acknowledged by people of all economic and political persuasions that something will have to be to be done about Social Security in the coming years. Some want to shore up the system through higher taxes and other reforms. Others want to convert it to a private-oriented pension system. Even President Clinton has entertained the prospect of ...

Book Review: The Quest for Cosmic Justice

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1999

The Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell (New York: The Free Press, 1999); 214 pages; $25. On August 18, 1919, during the Russian Civil War that resulted in the triumph of communism and the creation of the Soviet Union, there appeared the following passage in the first issue of The Red Sword, a newspaper published in Kiev by the Bolshevik ...

Should the State Punish Drug Offenders?

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 1999

Republican presidential contender George W. Bush's refusal to deny cocaine use raises some fundamental, moral questions: Why should the state be punishing adults for drug offenses? Why shouldn't people be free to engage in self-destructive behavior as long as their conduct is peaceful? Why should anyone be put in jail, fined, or have his property confiscated for simply engaging ...

Waco: Lies, Deaths, and Cover-Ups

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 1999

Afer the bombing of the Alfred J. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, President Clinton declared, "There's nothing patriotic about hating your government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country." I wonder whether the president still feels the same way in light of the ...

Imports are Good!

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1999

As champions and opponents of the World Trade Organization (WTO) descended on Seattle, it would have been nice if they at least had their premises correct: Imports are benefits. Exports are costs. That is the opposite of what most people inside and outside the meeting hall believe. They insist on ...

Oh, Go Away Already

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1999

It's unseemly for people who have never created wealth to tell those who have how to spend it. Especially when they do so while sitting around the Villa La Pietra overlooking Florence. The Associated Press described the setting as "a spectacular 14th-century Renaissance palace with frescoed ceilings." Perfect for ...