So those scurvy bums at Wal-Mart are finally getting what is coming to them! The state of Maryland will force all companies with more then 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health insurance. Lots of companies have that many employees, but only one falls under the 8 percent threshold, which is you know who.

Poor government. It tries to encourage hybrid cars with tax breaks and penalties. Then those cars are threatened by people using the government’s grants of artificial patent monopolies. Poor state.

Since those ardent constitutionalists and stalwarts of small government in the Bush administration took over their desks at the start of 2001, Leviathan has racked up an aggregate spending total of a whisker under $11 trillion - around 25% of cumulative, non-government GDP in the period.

In a speech given two years ago, Chairman-elect Bernanke enthused that:

While I have not read Hidden Order by David Friedman, he offers up this selection today on hawk-dove equilibria. I regard it as an error for such analysis to be silent on internal motives for behavior. In particular, lots of people wish to be virtuous, and work at it; and lots of people struggle against their vices. A great number of people are religious, and regard it as a duty to God to be virtuous.

Review of Basic Principles of Economic Value, by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (2005), Grove City: Libertarian Press.