As a Swede currently living in the United States, with actual experience of Swedencare, I must reply to the delusions propagated by professor Robert H. Frank in his June 15 article in the New York Times, titled “What Sweden Can Teach Us About Obamacare.”

Murray Rothbard argued persuasively against the Whig theory of history (1, 2, 3), and of intellectual history, in which events or ideas are portrayed as steadily and consistently improving with little room for detours, controversy, and backtracking. Peter Temin, the distinguished MIT economic historian, also worries that modern economics has become too Whiggish.

Hayek on Keynes:

[This is the second of a two-part analysis of ethical and legal questions pertaining to whistleblowers who expose government wrongdoing. The first part, “The Ethics of Whistleblowing” is available here. This second part goes beyond contractual considerations to look at government ownership of information and government oversight mechanisms.]
 

Here is my interview with Reason TV on the rising potency of marijuana.

[This is Part I of a two-part analysis of ethical and legal questions pertaining to whistleblowers who expose government wrongdoing. The second part of the analysis is here. In this first part of our analysis we look at the principles of contract and confidentiality as applied to whistleblowers who expose government wrongdoing.]

The Opportunity Costs of “Free”

P.J. O’Rourke once quipped, “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.” The truth behind O’Rourke’s humor is the opportunity cost of “political free.”

Even relatively bright people who have never studied economics realize that behind the government’s redistribution of wealth are huge opportunity costs both for citizens who actually pay for the government’s giveaways and for the people who receive them.

Never has a political song over four decades old applied so well to contemporary events as the song “Monster” recorded in 1969 by the rock group Steppenwolf, best known for its anthemic hard rock masterpiece “Born to Be Wild.” The lyrics are printed below and a YouTube video that vividly illustrates their application to our current situation is here (be sure not to miss the visual references to the Fed and the fiat dollar).

At the Rafael del Pino Foundation’s Master Lecture Series in Madrid, Spain, on June 20, 2013.