* In Washington, anyone who doesn’t worship government is considered an extremist. (N.Y. Post, January 20)

*The more power politicians capture, the more flattery they hear, and the more deluded they usually become. (FFF, December)

*Politics nowadays is a horror show that never ends. (recurrent theme on podcasts, etc.)

Housing affordability has become a big problem in recent years, driven in part by immense amounts of new money creation. As money loses its value, those who hold it look to put their money in assets that better hold their value. Real estate and housing is a popular destination for a declining currency. Over the past century, purchasing a home has rarely been less affordable.

For the bastions of libertarianism who uphold the validity of natural law and natural rights, it is always a matter of principle to categorically condemn violations of private property rights and infringements upon the liberty of the individual by means of state-imposed laws. Whenever state interventions become handy for aggression against other members of society, one must never fail to seize the opportunity to highlight the arbitrariness of these laws from the point of view of natural law.

“The U.S. economy is in very good shape — it has a strong underlying growth trend,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist and president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, reports the Associated Press. After all, 3rd quarter GDP rose 2.8 percent.

In August 2006, I was deeply involved in the infamous Duke Lacrosse Case. It hadn’t taken long to realize that the entire case was built by a prosecutor who was willing to do whatever necessary to take the case to trial to win an election (in large part to be able to pay off his campaign debts and earn another $15,000 a year in pension pay) and mollify the local political radicals. Whether any of the charges were true seemed to be an afterthought, as people were expected to believe them no matter what the evidence might have been.

The death of ex-President Jimmy Carter on December 26, 2024, at the age of one hundred resulted in many comments about him. Most that have come my way have favorable, and, at least by comparison with his successors, he can point to some genuine achievements. We shouldn’t be deceived though, into rating him as a good president. The great Murray Rothbard certainly didn’t think so, and in this week’s column, I’d like to consider some of the things Murray said about him.

In the book Crisis and Leviathan, libertarian thinker Robert Higgs pointed out that the state uses crises to ratchet up its power and control over citizens. With each new “crisis” — often directly or indirectly caused by the state itself — government grows and our freedom shrinks.

Possibly one of the most inane phrases ever uttered about modern governments is Oliver Wendell Holmes’s oft-quoted phrase stating that “taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”

This reflected the naïve view, often pushed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, of the so-called “social contract.” According to this idea, we pay taxes, and in return the state provides order, protection, and all the blessings of civilization. 

Criticisms of pro-market policies, such as lower corporate taxes and deregulation, are often rooted in a form of discrimination rarely acknowledged: upward classism. This prejudice against people of higher socio-economic status misrepresents the contributions of “the rich” and distorts discussions about public policy. While these policies are castigated as benefiting the wealthy, they have demonstrable benefits for broader economic growth and living standards.

As we start a new year, it is a good time to take a step back and remember what the past year has taught us. History might not repeat itself, but it does rhyme, as the saying goes, and the past is always the best teacher to prepare us for the future.