Back in the 2008 presidential race, I explained to then-candidate Rudy Giuliani the concept of “blowback.” Years of US meddling and military occupation of parts of the Middle East motivated a group of terrorists to carry out attacks against the United States on 9/11. They didn’t do it because we are so rich and so free, as the neocons would have us believe. They came over here because we had been killing Muslims “over there” for decades.
Back in 1999, I was in Tanzania relaxing by the pool at my hotel in the Serengeti after a dusty day of wildlife photography. A young attendant approached and informed me that former Tanzanian president Julius Nyrere was one of the most influential men in the world and that world leaders were streaming into Dar es Salaam to pay homage at his funeral. Nyrere had just died a few weeks before my arrival. The attendant went on to recite the many successes Nyrere and the government had achieved.
The recent congressional hearing of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg illuminates the complicated questions raised by our ever evolving technologically immersed society. The idea of a person or entity being able to track the digital viewing habits of innumerable individuals posits concern about the permissibility of encroaching on private lives. Fortunately, the concept of invading the intimacy of another person’s day to day dealings for financial gain has been addressed before, in the form of blackmail.
Apart from dealing with government intervention, understanding markets is probably the most challenging task of any business owner or entrepreneur. It was for good reason that Ludwig von Mises insisted that economists and institutions that teach economics go out of their way to share economics theory with business owners and the general public.
Very rarely do I have a reason to praise Chris Christie, but he delivered one today by winning his Supreme Court case granting states the power to legalize online gambling.
Looking to the next few years ahead, is America and the world going to continue riding a wave of economic growth, improving standards of living, falling and lower unemployment, and technological changes that will continue to raise the quality and variety of life? Or will this turn out to be, at least partly, an artificial economic boom that will end in another economic and financial bust? Reading the economic tealeaves is never an easy task.
I recently traveled to Texas to speak about South Africa, at the Free Speech Forum of the Texas A & M University.
To travel from the Pacific Northwest all the way to College Station, Texas, without experiencing more of the “Lone Star State” was not an option.
During the housing bubble that ended in 2007-8, the amount of new housing construction was remarkable. Enormous subdivisions were being constructed in metro areas across the land. Buildings of condominiums sprang up in city centers, and the ready availability of credit meant many were buying more than one house as “investments” or summer homes. New housing, it seemed, was everywhere.
