In the United States, the legal system is supposed to begin with a presumption of innocence. If the government suspects someone of wrongdoing, it is up to the government to prove wrongdoing. The burden of proof lies with government agents.

But that’s not how the immigration system works. When someone is detained by immigration agents, it is up to the suspect to prove he is not a criminal. Otherwise, the suspect may be held for long periods without due process, or even deported.

Arthur Laffer, the recent Presidential Medal of Freedom winner and occasional Peter Schiff gambling partner, made headlines yesterday for questioning the value of an independent Federal Reserve. 

As he told CNBC’s Squawk Box:

Given the repeated failures of Keynesian economic policy, both in America and around the world, you would think the theory would be discredited.

Or at least be treated with considerable skepticism by anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of economic affairs.

Apparently financial journalists aren’t very familiar with real-world evidence.

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) brought about a monumental change in American labor relations by overriding the role of courts. Prior to Congress enacting the NLRA in 1935, unions had a hard time organizing because courts were generally opposed to union activity and saw it as a violation of an employer’s property rights.

I woke up this Independence Day morning, surprised to find out that Bill Greene, the great 2016 faithless elector who cast his vote for Ron Paul, passed away. Among other things, Bill was a fierce advocate of making gold and silver legal tender, and was an assistant professor at South Texas College. He was an early supporter of Ron Paul, his support going as far back as Paul’s 1988 campaign.

[Editor’s note: see Greene’s Mises Institite author profile.]

The European Union (EU) and Mercosur signed a historical trade deal last Friday. The adjective historical is sometimes misused. However, in this case, it is the most pertinent. The agreement has been negotiated for a staggering twenty years. Indeed, trade talks started on June 28, 1999, with a major relaunch in 2016 after negotiations had been stuck.

In a series of outstanding posts, the Bionic Mosquito has written on “The Search for Liberty.” In these posts, he presents a penetrating analysis of natural law and metaphysics. I admire these posts and have learned a great deal from them

Marxists hate capitalism and want to replace it with socialism because they believe that profits are stolen from wages. They begin with the idea that originally there were workers but no capitalists and that the value of the products the workers produced and sold was all wages. But then allegedly came the capitalists, who proceeded to deduct a part of wages and claim it as profits. Adam Smith expresses this idea in paragraphs 1,2, & 5-8 of his chapter on wages in bk. I of The Wealth of Nations.