Word has been spreading lately that the Bush Administration is planning to tax all life insurance death benefits. Although he would probably like to, the proposal I have seen indicates that only certain narrow life insurance transactions would be taxed. This is contrary to the administration’s rhetoric, and a new tax of any sort is always harmful, but it’s not as bad as the rumors make out.
There’s no point in writing up another article on Larry Kudlow’s recent analysis of Bush’s proposed budget, since my points would be the same as the last time I did it. As before, there is the trick of removing big-ticket items in order to make the rate of growth of everything else low:
It is more than twenty-five years ago, when former US central bank chairman Arthur Burns held a shocking speech at the meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Belgrade, on September 30, 1979, entitled “The Anguish of Central Banking.”1 In his talk Burns offered little hope for an escape from secular inflation. Cur
Dear Dr. Alden and Dr. Robins:
Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s exceptional erudition, scholarship, and intelligence are a matter of public record, and have been for years. He is one of the very few academics of whom it can be said that his thinking has changed lives (including the lives of readers whom he has never even met) for the good.
Dear President Harter,
I should like to include myself among those who have come to the defense of Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe. If the freedom to teach is not as important as the freedom to learn, then there is little hope for the university as a place of dialogue and debate, where serious issues may be considered and scholarship pursued.
French libertarian, François-René Rideau (who apparently runs Bastiat.org) offers advice on his blog for communicating monetary economics to cute young actresses:
“The old quip was that a neoconservative was a liberal who had been mugged. Well, let me tell you about my night on Monday...” Thus begins this scary post by Gene Callahan, author of Economics for Real People and current graduate student at the London School of Economics. Gene, this blog sends sympathy and best wishes for a speedy recovery.
