Does Capitalism Need Adjustment?

One of the worst things that has happened during this economic crisis is that capitalism itself has been attacked without mercy — even by some who generally support the free market. Calls for more regulations, more bailouts, more Fed action, more stimulus packages, more recovery programs, and more government intervention in general can be heard from every quarter.

Government: Club or Prison?

Does government function as a club or a prison? In particular, are local taxing districts — local governmental entities — simply clubs where residents voluntarily pay fees set by an elected board? Or, are these districts nothing more than prisons, so to speak, where the governing body extracts fines and penalties from land and labor? First, let us look at unions and monopolies.

The Dangers of Disputing Warming Orthodoxy

Unfortunately, we cannot remain neutral while the experts battle. The global-warming advocates support drastic measures that would seriously affect production. Some of them go further and call for curbs on human population. In this connection, it is more than a little disturbing that John Holdren, chosen by Barack Obama as his science advisor since the publication of Horner’s book, is a close associate of Paul Ehrlich.

The Left, The Right, and The State

What is the state? It is the group within society that claims for itself the exclusive right to rule everyone under a special set of laws that permit it to do to others what everyone else is rightly prohibited from doing, namely aggressing against person and property. Why would any society permit such a gang to enjoy an unchallenged legal privilege? Here is where ideology comes into play.

James Watt: Monopolist

Was James Watt’s patent of the steam engine a crucial incentive needed to trigger his inventive genius, as the traditional history suggests? Or did his use of the legal system to inhibit competition set back the Industrial Revolution by a decade or two? Here is a case study in how “intellectual property rights” do grave damage to the market economy.

Why Congress Must Stop the Fed’s Massive Pumping

If it were possible to lift real economic growth by means of money pumping, world poverty would have been eradicated a long time ago. Real economic growth requires real savings to fund various activities that support and promote it. (Remember that money is just a medium of exchange and cannot grow anything. Money is employed to exchange goods of one wealth generator for the goods of another wealth generator.)

Lucas and the Fed

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on December 23, Robert Lucas expresses approval of the Fed’s latest reduction of its target range for the Federal Funds Rate to approximately zero, calling it “welcome.” Lucas notes that this policy does not leave the Fed without the ability to inject additional reserves into the banking system, because it can purchase not only Treasury bills, as it normally does in its open-market operations, but also longer-term Treasury securities and private bonds, which c

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