Mises on Trans Fats
Well, not quite. But I did stumble on this passage in Bureaucracy (chapter V, section 5), relevant to a couple of previous posts (1, 2) about trans fats:
The Lockean Case for Dictatorship?
Harvey Mansfield, writing in the Wall Street Journal, slaps together one of the strangest and most circuitous defenses of executive tyranny I’ve ever read. From his perspective, the case for abolishing the rule of law is in the tradition of Aristotle, Locke, Hamilton, Madison, Tocqueville, and a few others. His prose is so unencumbered honest analytics that he might have added Paine, Hayek, Rothbard, and his pet canary too.
The War the Government Cannot Win
We would all like to see a world without violence and bloodshed. This hardly distinguishes our generation from any that preceded. What is unique about our moment is that we live under a regime that has come to believe that the government itself can produce this result for us if we only give the government enough power, money, and managerial discretion to accomplish this goal. The worst lie of the Bush administration doesn’t concern WMDs. The big lie is that government can accomplish wonderful things if we give it enough power, money, and discretion. No matter how many times we hear it, or in what context, it is always and everywhere a lie.
An Island of Pride In An Empty Sea
3/13/05
How strange to find pride of workmanship in this seaside casino where the trick is to get rich without working; unless you consider work the mashing of a red lighted button that says “spin wheel”.
Surrounding the buffet, where I’m chewing on a moist sticky sweet macaroon are hundreds of players symbolically throwing money at numbers in electronic machines — numbers painted on felt tabletops — numbers inscribed on wheels.
Gaming they call it, not gambling. Gaming is sport — gambling is a vice.
Should We Ban Luxury Condos?
It’s wonderful to have visions and dreams, but thoroughly evil and destructive when we seek to have government accomplish them on our behalf. The means, not the dream, is the problem. It ends up taking away liberty and creating unanticipated forms of destruction. This is the great lesson that economics has to teach us, but it is evident that the message has not stuck.
BUSINESS WEEK warns against privatizing roads
COVER STORY By Emily Thornton Roads To Riches Why investors are clamoring to take over America’s highways, bridges, and airports—and why the public should be nervous
Tote this!
Steven Pearlstein’s Unreal Economics
Steven Pearlstein’s “From Old World to Real World“ is a remarkable piece on the economics of international trade and protection.
Benjamin Anderson, 1886-1949
It might be May Day in Cuba--the day on which Castro gives his traditional 4–5 hour speech, or so says NPR with exuberant expectation—but at the Mises Institute, it is Benjamin Anderson day. He was born on May 1, 1886. He was an outstanding economist who first drew Hazlitt’s attention to the Austrian School with his book The Value of Money.
Madmen and rights
Bill Steigerwald, associate editor, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, puts the horrible Virginia Tech shooting in its almost-forgotten historical context.
