Art Carden is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Business at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, a weekly columnist for Forbes.com, and a regular contributor to the Mises Economics Blog. He is also an Adjunct Fellow with the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, a member of the Mises Institute’s Adjunct Faculty, and a member of the Board of Scholars of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. He has taught at Institute for Humane Studies Summer Seminars since 2008 and taught at Mises University in 2009.
Freedom Swiss style: Pay a per head tax on your pet or the state will kill it.
So much for private property—one’s pet—being one’s own. If pet owners don’t pay the state money, most of which goes into someone else’s pocket, it will come after them. A local Swiss politician described it for what it is:
“It’s meant to put pressure on people who don’t cooperate.”
That’s what’s called “liberty” by socialists.
Peter Sidor, a heavy hitter at the Mises Wiki, just called on my Skype app on my iPhone, something I downloaded the other day just to test it out (yeah yeah, I know, I’m a late adopter).
Crystal meth is a horrible drug, but it is also a cheap date, the poor man’s cocaine. During cocaine’s heyday, meth was nearly extinct on the illegal market. Then came the war on cocaine.
I am convinced by the wisdom of Don Boudreaux. I posted this in the comments at Cafe Hayek:
If there is one issue that pops up again and again in my conversations about economics with interested noneconomists, it is manufacturing.
There’s a genuine concern about the state of manufacturing in the United States, and I am not sure of the reason why. It could be that there is an inchoate sense that manufacturing is dying here, given that so many of our popular-consumption goods seem to be made overseas. Then there is the issue of the trade deficit, which is generally reported on in the mainstream media in a manner that is irresponsible, uninformed, or both.
We have a two-and-a-half year-old son and an almost seven-month old daughter. Both are usually extremely pleasant and well-behaved, though there are cycles during which our son is less than cooperative.
