Breath of Fresh Air
Whenever I see Fred Reed has penned a new piece, I smile immediately. And, the iconoclastic Reed never disappoints, writing with the wit and wisdom of a man who has been around the world, and remembers all the gritty details.
Buckley’s Boomsday: Loaded with Laughs
With the Wall Street cum Main Street meltdown, worries about a collapse of the Social Security system have been put off. Maintaining employment, putting food on the table and servicing the now-exploding payment on that negative-amortization, adjustable-rate, now underwater mortgage that seemed like such a good idea back when Alan Greenspan was the Maestro are what’s keeping Americans awake at night. Whether we will be able to draw from FDR’s what-Madoff-can-do-I-can-do-better program is a problem for another day.
A Young Champion of Liberty
As the state grows in power and influence seemingly each and every day, those speaking out are few and far between. It’s rarely a good career move. The local worthies don’t embrace the anti-state message. Few employers want the controversy. Seeking and speaking the truth is a lonely existence with benefits that don’t make you rich.
Does the Greek Debt Crisis Pose a Threat to World Economies?
“Bailing out Greece is not going to reduce the threat of another economic crisis.”
On April 27 the Standard & Poor’s rating agency downgraded the Greek government’s debt to junk status. Greece has been graded BB+ by the S&P, official “junk” territory. It is now on a par with Azerbaijan, Colombia, Panama, and Romania. The cost of Greek borrowing on a two-year bond was about 1.3% last November. By April 27 the cost stood at 19%.
French and Manne
Andy Duncan is wild for Doug French’s book: “You know you have crossed into the Austrian light when you wake up one morning and everything has become clear.
2010 Books on Libertarianism: Woods, Chartier, Miron, Huebert
Looks like 2010 will bring in a bumper crop of great libertarian books:
There’s a riot going on
The average Greek on the street isn’t wild about the new austerity measures being proposed by the IMF and EU that are considering bailing out their government.
Demonstrators set fire to a bank and three bank employees died.
“Greece is a unique and particular case in the EU” because of its “precarious debt dynamics” and because it “has cheated with its statistics for years and years,” EU Commissioner Olli Rehn said.
Sticks and stones
Scott Baker over at OpEdNews recently posted an article under this title: “Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School are morons, China is full of Geniuses.”
Ouch.
According to Baker, China’s managed economy is the future,
“China is miles ahead of the U.S. in economic management. It is an economy run by serious economists who learn from their mistakes … “
There are those nagging human rights issues,
Feel Sorry for BP?
It should be obvious that BP is by far the leading victim, but I’ve yet to see a single expression of sadness for the company and its losses. Indeed, the words of disgust for BP are beyond belief.
Karl Hess and the Death of Politics
Karl Hess was a lifelong libertarian who spent most of his life searching for his true political identity and his true ideological home. His awakening began in the 1960s, when he read Ayn Rand and then met Murray Rothbard.
