Rain, Rain, Go Away

Note that no drought ever officially ends. The papers are packed with warnings of impending doom during the worst of it. But when the torrents of rain come — and they invariably do, eventually — there is no press release that says something along the lines of: “Praise Be to God, the drought is over. Use as much water as you are willing to pay for!” Bureaucrat International has a common feature: loathing of “consumerism.”

The “Who Is” Series

We are putting hard copies of these small monographs in any store order that includes a book by the author. The plan is to double and triple the number of authors covered, until they all have a monograph, and continue to include them free in shipped orders. Of course we hope that people will read them and pass them around.

Triumph of the Red-State Fascists

Every Republican I’ve spoken to is mystified that John McCain has sewn up the Republican nomination. For his entire career, he has been more statist on both domestic and foreign policy than even the typical Republican. He has been considered a “liberal,” and not in a good sense. He doesn’t share any of the values that are said to make up the Republican consensus on economics or culture or religion. His personal baggage is heavy and a mile long. He had no dedicated constituency within the party.

Is the Starving Man Free?

Modern “liberals” who advocate the view that government should provide us with the necessities or alleged necessities of life rarely appreciate that this assistance rests on a system of mass robbery and enslavement that is highly inimical to their professed belief in liberty. In fact, the advocates of such policies present them in quite the opposite light, as enhancing our liberty.

The Crisis Point of the Inflationary Boom

Most of the businessmen canvassed are finding their costs are rising and, in particular, the dominant cost they typically bear: that associated with retaining a competent and motivated workforce. At the same time, those who do not directly play a part in satisfying the needs of end consumers (an overriding majority, if our sample is representative of industrial and commercial organization as a whole) are beginning to fret about a slackening of demand for their (mainly higher and intermediate goods) output. As Mises, Hayek, et al. took great pains to explain, what this means is that the seemingly golden age — in reality, a thinly gilded one — during which the first, most favored issuers of cheap credit and artificially boosted equity prices enjoyed almost effortless success, has reached the limit of its ability to postpone the workings of fundamental economic law.

Society Is a Blessing, but Government Is Evil

Thomas Paine was more than a pamphleteer for the cause of the American revolution. He was a serious political philosopher, as this excerpt from The Rights of Man demonstrates. In many ways, he anticipated the insights of Mises, Rothbard, and Hayek. “A great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society, and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has in man and all the parts of a civilized community upon each other create that great chain of connection which holds it together. “

Welcome to the new Ice Age

According to the National Post today:
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966. The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.” China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century.
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