Free Market

In the post-attack world, in which politicians attempt to impose the national security state at home and wage war abroad, a simple point has been obscured: it all started with a multiple hijacking. The theft of the planes was made possible not with grenades or heavy explosives but with box cutters––the most dangerous weapon on board. If the hijackers had been stopped or even deterred by armed pilots, the twin towers would still be standing, and there would be no war or government power grabs (at least not more than the usual).

When the AMT began, those with a $20,000-a-year or less income in 1979 were exempted. That would mean that, correcting for the inflation, today the AMT exemption should be about $54,000 for married couples filing jointly and $41,000 single filers. It isn’t. Congress, which in its wisdom never forgets to raise its own salaries, has moved slowly in raising the AMT exemption.

The controversy is as old as the Great Society. So why bring up the fluoridation question again? Well, my county in Florida just voted to fluoridate the water supply. Actually, the government officials in my county who are responsible for such things voted for it—neither I nor my neighbors were ever asked to vote on anything.

But rather than being the substance of a conspiracy theory, as is usually claimed, the question of fluoridation is a question of the proper role of government (federal, state, or local) in society.

This past September, the state government of South Carolina came under fire for issuing a special license plate bearing the slogan "Choose Life." Affronted abortion-rights groups quickly filed suit, claiming that the state was violating the first and fourteenth amendments by failing to offer a "Choose Choice" or similar specialty plate. Florida's and Louisiana's "Choose Life" plates faced similar court challenges.

So, knock down the Empire State Building and we can further increase our economic output. Of course Krugman would not want just New York City's economy to grow, so we should also knock down the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Hancock Building in Boston. If this does not revive the economy, we better start leveling entire cities; surely that will bring economic prosperity.

The terrorist attack in September did immense damage to life and property, damage which the federal government has compounded with its wartime response, which has come at the expense of the freedom of the American people. The very merit of freedom itself has been called into question. If the terrorists desired to do maximum damage, they would have hoped for just such a response.

In the weeks following the terror attacks, calls have come from politicians and journalists to "federalize" airport security by making workers who screen passengers and baggage government employees. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and others in Congress have declared that "passengers won't feel safe again" unless the government takes this step.

There is so much nonsense written about luxury. Yet, Ludwig von Mises has put forth what has to be one of the most cogent, elegant, and sensible theories of luxury ever penned by an economist. It was written more than 70 years ago in his book Liberalism, a timeless exposition of the classical-liberal political philosophy.

We will never resort to a bailout, said the Bush administration concerning the financial failures of the Argentinian government. That was one week before the same administration arranged an $8 billion line of credit for the same government.

There is no need to assume anything sinister is at work in the fact that women's incomes are lower than those of men.