I met Antony Flew at a Mises Institute conference in 2001. He did not share the admiration common among philosophers for John Rawls. For him, The Theory of Justice was a travesty: Rawls’s failure to define justice until late in the book especially upset him. His vehemence, combined as it was with great charm, made an unforgettable impression. After my own talk, also an attack on Rawls, I said to him, “You’ll probably say I was too easy on Rawls.” “Well, you were rather”, he replied.

Daniel Gross says in his cover article forget about the negative economic indicators, the current recovery is “pretty remarkable.” After all, the stock market is up, the government said job creation was positive in March, productivity is high and GDP is supposedly roaring ahead.

[Morality, Political Economy, and American Constitutionalism • By Timothy P. Roth • Edward Elgar, 2007 • X + 194 pages. An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Donna Orlando, is available for download.]
 

[Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State • By Garry Wills • Penguin Press, 2010 • 278 pages]

America’s first central bank was borne of a corrupt political deal, but that particular act of political corruption pales in comparison to what Hamilton and the Federalists really had in mind.

Dean Baker, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, ubiquitous columnist and blogger, is a unique economist who advocates progressive policies framed in terms of free-market ideals. In a manner reminiscent of the Chicago School of economics, he has no fundamental compunction about state force but has an affinity for laying a glossy veneer of market concepts over the cheap particleboard of brute interventionism.

The first class meeting, the maiden voyage, of the live classroom of the Mises Academy was a thrilling, daring, revealing experience. It had a feeling that I only know as a “Jetson’s Moment” as Robert Murphy energetically lectured to 200 students gathered from all over the world in one digital spot, with Bob at his desk teaching like an Oxford don. On the right side of the window, the multitasking students listened, tittered with stream of consciousness commentary that couldn’t be heard, and greeted each other with wild enthusiasm.

Should employers be allowed to check job applicants’ credit reports?

I debated that question on CNBC’s Street Signs today:

Click here to see video.

Of course employers should be allowed to check applicants’ credit. Why should they look only at the biased information you put on your resume? Credit reports provide a fuller picture.