Since October 1993, we have lived through the biggest buying spree of firearms in the history of the U.S. It began just before the passage of the Brady Bill and has yet to die down. And the boom in sales will continue so long as members of the governing elites are infatuated with the prospect of gun bans.
American money was never more sound, or banking more free, than 200 years ago. Since then, it's been a long, steady decline from the gold standard and competitive banking to our Fed-run system of inflated paper currency, deposit insurance, and perpetually shaky banks on the dole.
In the story of Rumpelstiltskin, an evil dwarf saves the life of a king's bride by spinning flax into gold. But the price is high for performing this seeming miracle. She must give the dwarf her first-born child.
The story could be an allegory for the "micro-credit" movement, the current enthusiasm of the political Left here and abroad. It promises credit for poor people with no savings or collateral. A closer look, however, shows the movement to be financially dangerous, subtly coercive, and, in its most famous case, an enemy to children and families.
Copy Japan! was the cry of the 1980s. That country, economically speaking, appeared to have it all: an industrial policy that knew good and bad investments before markets themselves did, a disciplined workforce, and, most of all, an unshakable banking system in which everyone had confidence.
Surveying the present wreckage, it's hard to believe these banks were once the envy of moneylenders worldwide. Now they have a reputation no better than the U.S. public school system.
From Left and Right, capitalism is condemned for all the cultural failings of the modern world—everything from mindless TV to dirty books to slatternly art to trashy movies to debasing music. It's an extension of the liberal habit of blaming a system for what are actually the failings of individuals.
Finally, thought some Mexicans, part of the $50 billion that Western taxpayers sunk into the bailout would get to native investors. In late August, Finance Minister Guillermo Ortiz waved $1.1 billion in the air for indebted individuals and companies. The result: the peso sunk like a rock, again.
There are many curious aspects to the latest flag fracas. There is the absurdity of the proposed change in our basic constitutional framework by treating such minor specifics as a flag law. There is the proposal to outlaw "desecration" of the American flag. "Desecration" means "to divest of a sacred character or office." Is the American flag, battle emblem of the U.S. government, supposed to be "sacred"? Are we to make a religion of statolatry? What sort of grotesque religion is that?
Some Americans are no doubt touched by Bill Clinton's concern for the health of children. His press secretary even declared that it was now the President's personal responsibility to prevent American youth from smoking.
But Clinton's ten-point program to prevent teenage smoking, designed by FDA Czar-for-Life David Kessler, will fail like all previous attempts at government nannyism.
My aunt in Massachusetts, who's never had much interest in politics, is now a land-rights activist. Bureaucrats hounded her for months, insisting that her small plot is a wetland "protected" under federal law, and demanding that she repent of the high crime of planting a garden on her own property. Now the swelling anti-government citizens' army has another soldier.
Left-liberals hate the idea, but the prosperity of everyone in a market economy depends in good part on the rich. The capital they have earned and saved generates investments and creates jobs. Their savings keep interest rates low. Their actions are philanthropic in every sense. In their professions, they help everyone prosper. In their charity, they help the poor, and allow the arts and education to thrive.
