The Obama Administration has claimed to be outraged by the shabby treatment that veterans receive at the hands of the VA. But as Ron Paul points out this week, it’s a bit unconvincing when the administration claims to care deeply about veterans while simultaneously sending American soldiers to receive third degree burns and mangled limbs in far away lands that are no threat whatsoever to the Americans who are paying all the bills.
Memorial Day provides as good an opportunity as any to reflect on the horrendous and irreversible costs of war. For most people—and rightly so—the clearest costs are those in terms of human life, which is shattered both physically and psychologically. As John Denson writes, “In looking at the costs of war we must always keep in mind the reality experienced by soldiers in actual combat.
In America, Memorial Day weekend (like Labor Day weekend) means big sales at most major US retailers. But the credit-fueled consumer frenzy of the early 2000s has come to a screeching halt, reports The Market Oracle:
Many of my friends think of the state as stupid, and therefore an easy foe for determined dissidents to defeat. I have a different view.
For one thing, the state has always had ready resort to those with cutting-edge expertise in the private sector, from the days when it hired Eli Whitney to manufacture muskets with interchangeable parts to our own time, when it hires Oracle, Microsoft, and a host of other high-tech companies to help it spy on us. History has shown that no task is so revolting and criminal that the state cannot attract private contractors to carry it out.
Memorial Day provides the political class countless opportunities to ruin an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable holiday weekend. Like clockwork, local congressmen, mayors, city council members, et al. materialize at parades, picnics, and churches to give speeches about “freedom.”
But what does freedom really mean?
Ken Rogoff offers a series of powerful arguments in favor of retaining paper currency.
Interviewed by host Tom Woods, Bob Murphy demonstrates that the author of a book on capital doesn’t seem to know any capital theory.
