Poor Martha Stewart and Samuel Waksal, snared by arbitrary insider-trading laws that require information to be socialized. If one party knows more than others about a particular firm or industry, the SEC is perfectly able to rule that possessing--and acting upon--that knowledge is a crime.
Southwest Airlines announced that as of June 26, "persons of size" who fly with them will have to purchase an additional seat if they cannot fit into one. Thomas Woods reports that this prompted the discrimination police to their usual hysterics. After all, they say, bulimic people do not receive a discount for using up less.
In this excerpt from his new book, Gene Callahan explains that economics does not attempt to decide whether our choice of ends to pursue is wise. It does not tell us that we are wrong if we value a certain amount of leisure more than some amount of money. It does not view humans as being only worried about monetary gain. There is nothing "noneconomical" about someone giving away a fortune, or turning down a high-paying job to become a monk.
Popular thinking about economic growth is still strongly influenced by the productivity theory of capital, which presumes that capital engenders a yield like the fruits from a tree, writes Antony P. Mueller. If it were merely aggregate investment that mattered, economic development and continuous wealth creation would be child's play.
Fannie Mae's monopoly privileges have given it an ever-increasing share of the secondary conforming mortgage market, writes Robert Blumen, and it currently is seeking to expand into other parts of the mortgage market. The net result has been a nightmare of resource misallocation and massive systemic risk.
For those who have not flown commercially in since last September are in for a rude awakening, writes William Anderson. You will face the insanity that passes for modern airport security, even as airline travel is as vulnerable as ever. And if you believe things might improve, think again.
Pat Buchanan’s remarkable book expresses a distinctively nationalist thesis; and, as a conscientious reviewer in good standing, I shall of course say something about it.
The Enron story provides what academics call "teaching moments," that is, opportunities to explain how economic theory can explain the outcome of state involvement in market processes. Interventionism often results in failures such as Enron's, and lessons learned by studying it may help avoid similar problems in the future.
Mark Twain wrote long ago, but he seems at least as insightful about the government abuses we experience today as he was of those he observed directly. And the defense of liberty in modern America, with a government that has ballooned far beyond anything he could have anticipated, would certainly benefit from a healthy new dose of the same patriotic irreverence that animated Twain.
The quirky nature of credit is that it is not necessarily better in abundance, writes Christopher Mayer. It's not like beer, butter, and bananas--where more means cheaper and cheaper is good. Credit is like money; it represents buying power. More credit means more buying power, which means a bidding up of assets and a spark for an unsustainable boom.
