Successful people who earn their wealth through free and peaceful exchange may choose to give some of it away, but they'd be no less moral and no less debt-free if they gave away nothing. It cheapens the powerful charitable impulse that all but a few people possess to suggest that charity is equivalent to debt service or that it should be motivated by any degree of guilt or self-flagellation.
Watchdog groups are correct to monitor the disbursement of the Red Cross's September 11 donations. And the issue of appropriate uses of charitable funds promoted for a particular purpose must be addressed. But the same issue should be raised about innumerable government initiatives whose claimed goals are also undermined by the same diversion of resources.
Athletics, like economics, is an endeavor of human action. While we can see scores and statistics, there is no true way to quantify how good or bad a team may be. Indeed, if the computer polls with their mathematical formulas were so accurate and useful, then one would hardly see the need for a championship game after all.
Gold is the antidote to inflationary money. Gold, its advocates have said through the centuries, protects an individual against the damage caused by the disease called inflation that is created by central banks. Gregory Bresiger reviews Peter Bernstein's attempt to debunk: The Power of Gold: History of an Obsession.
Almost any food you can name--if you study its history--has something to say about economics, politics, history, or culture. For whatever reason, tea seems to teach more lessons by its history than almost anything else we could eat or drink.
In the weeks immediately following the World Trade Center and Pentagon disasters, commentators were quick to predict in apocalyptic terms that television and movies would never be the same again. It is still too early, however, to tell whether there really has been a sea-change in the American psyche. Paul Cantor explains.
It comes as no surprise that governments spend more money and regulate more actively during crises--wars and economic bailouts are expensive and complicated. But a more active government also attracts opportunists, who perceive that a national emergency can serve as a useful pretext for achieving their own objectives.
The poor security of U.S. airlines is a predictable outcome of government regulations and subsidies. Only through complete privatization of the industry will consumers be able to fly cheaply and safely.
Politics creates a setting where, in the words of Longfellow, "man must either be anvil or hammer." Thus, a vast array of political machinery is created to represent a wide variety of interests and to further those interests at the expense of the other groups.
Making the boom continue at home and abroad has been the prime focus of U.S. monetary policy for quite some time. But among the unintended consequences emerge the broadly based lowering of perceived risk levels in the financial markets and a global spread of careless investment activities.
