Free Market

As a benefactor, scholar, entrepreneur, and member of the natural elite, he was an example to our students, and to all of us. No matter how strong the storms, Mr. Alford never gave up the ship of liberty, and neither should we.

George Wallace's famous contention that "there ain't a dime's worth of difference" between Democrats and Republicans has received ample corroboration since the 1994 elections. The $50 billion Mexican peso bailout, opposed by some 80% of Americans, has been only the most flagrant example of the real meaning of "bipartisanship." 

The government always wants more of our money, and too many economists are ready to make the case for surrendering our last dime. During the budget hysteria of 1990, for example, many economists claimed that the government needed to raise taxes to balance the budget. Anyone who disagreed was supposedly unwilling to confront the hard fiscal reality that the public needed to be taxed more.

During the "shutdown" of the federal government, bureaucrats were divided between "essential" and "non-essential." The designation caused enormous turmoil within agencies. People with lifetime jobs and gigantic pensions were deemed nonessential, while those holding short-term, highly paid, political positions—so-called Schedule C employees—were deemed "essential" and showed up for work every day. 

The joy erupting in Howard University's student union was palpably motivated; O.J. Simpson would walk. "As the verdict was read, the place erupted into screaming and jumping. You couldn't hear," one observer put it. To the students, a falsely accused black man was able to get justice—in racist America, no less.

People made fun of Gerald Ford's buttons that said "WIN," meaning "Whip Inflation Now." The buttons and the accompanying propaganda campaign implied that consumers' bad vibes were the cause of inflation. Ha, Ha.

Want to hear what a scoff sounds like? The next time you're talking to a political scientist, an economist, or a public employee, mention the possibility of a private road. Roads aren't supposed to be private, right? They are supposed to be "public goods," meaning that capitalists can't or won't build them so government has to.

Middle-class incomes, the core of what we call the "standard of living," have been falling for more than two decades. Though people have known this intuitively, only recently have we heard much about it. Economists and the media have been conditioned to look for the ups and downs in the business cycle, meanwhile missing the single most ominous trend in American economic life. 

Jews have been a conspicuous presence in black neighborhoods for more than a century, providing food, home furnishings, medical care, living accommodations, and financial services. Most of the Jews involved in these enterprises were first- or second-generation immigrants from Europe. In recent times, as Jews have veered toward more decorous occupations, these functions have been increasingly assumed by newer immigrants, often Korean or Arab.

The pattern is all-too-familiar: Congress and its bureaus of executive-branch henchmen arrogantly mock the Constitution, only to be applauded by the courts. Nowhere is this pattern more evident than the recent case of Leslie Salt Co. vs. the United States. Here are the facts.