Daily Articles

Government: Destroyer of Wealth

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 1998

That ugly sucking sound coming from Washington, D.C., is the federal government's antitrust case against Microsoft. For as long as this case lasts, it will be like a monster vacuum cleaner powerfully drawing wealth from the pockets of every American, and everyone else in the world for that matter. The ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 22: The Chicago School Economists and the Great Depression

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1998

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 ...

Educational Gimmickry

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 1998

The coming controversy in the debate in education policy — actually, it's here already — will be over the matter of equality of funding. In several states, the courts or legislatures have decided that it is unfair for communities with higher-priced real estate to have better schools than communities with lower-priced real estate. Their solution is to have the ...

More Federal Lies on Guns

by James Bovard October 1, 1998

The Clinton administration is continuing to portray the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 as the key to national salvation. However, once again, the administration's claims are as bogus as a $3 bill. The Justice Department announced on June 21, 1998, that presale handgun background checks ...

Inequality of Wealth and Incomes

by Ludwig von Mises October 1, 1998

The market economy — capitalism — is based on private ownership of the material means of production and private entrepreneurship. The consumers by their buying or abstention from buying ultimately determine what should be produced and in what quantity and quality. They render profitable the affairs of those businessmen ...

Waging Tax War Against Ourselves

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1998

It's easy to see that it's election time in America. Vice President Gore recently made a campaign swing around California where he handed out $185.4 million in federal grants while, at the same time, raising millions of dollars for Democratic candidates. A Gore political aid described it ...

Tax Cutting, Washington-Style

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 1998

The House Republicans' proposed tax cut, which looks doomed in the Senate, is an outrage. It's so small it would barely show up on the budget radar screen. This makes absolutely no sense. If President Clinton is determined to veto a tax cut, as he says he is, at least make ...

Tear Down the Wall and Open the Borders

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1998

Perhaps we ought to lament the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. It might have been less costly and more efficient to simply move it to the southern border of the United States. Four years ago, the federal government initiated Operation Gatekeeper, a massive crackdown on illegal immigration into California. ...

What Republican Revolution?

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1998

The dictionary defines "revolution" as a complete change in something. Thus, when Republicans called the 1994 election results a Republican revolution, everyone naturally assumed that there was going to be a complete change in the nature of government in America. In the euphoria of the '94 election results, Republicans said ...

Book Review: In Praise of Commercial Capital

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1998

In Praise of Commercial Culture by Tyler Cowen (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998); 278 pages; $29.95. One of the most persistent views in many intellectual circles is that capitalism and the market economy are antagonistic to refined culture and artistic appreciation. On the one hand, the general public, it is claimed, is too uneducated and narrow-minded to understand either ...

President’s Perilous Foreign Affairs

by Sheldon Richman September 15, 1998

When President Clinton ordered air strikes against alleged terrorist facilities in Sudan and Afghanistan last August, nearly everyone wondered if he had done it to take our attention off his sex scandal. But perhaps he's using the scandal to distract us from his foreign adventurism. Many criticisms can be made about the president's White ...

Politics Won’t Produce Moral Heroes

by Sheldon Richman September 2, 1998

Much of the reaction about President Clinton's difficulties can be summed up thus: Our leader let us down. The premise is that the president is not just a chief executive officer, but much more: a moral and spiritual leader of the nation. I submit this is an unfortunate attitude for free people. Americans have long had ...