What Sells in Prague
This postcard was sent to me by Don Printz who found it in Prague at the “Museum of Communism.” Click on the image:
Is capital gains income?
The recent report on personal income and spending showed a full 3.7% increase in personal income and an even greater increase in disposable income , raising the savings rate to 3.4%. But this sharp increase was mostly due to the temporary factor of Microsofts extra dividend of over $30 billion (Excluding that the increase was only 0.5%, lower than the increase in spending).
Radicals and Moderates
In all times of state dominance, the instability of the system gives rise to two types of reformers: the moderates who want to work within the system but end up defending it, and the radicals who have the clarity to see that the only real solution is upheaval. If the latter prevail – and they often have in the history of politics – it is only after having endured the slings and arrows of the former. [Full Article on LRC]
Ayn Rand’s Contribution to the Cause of Freedom
Roderick Long celebrates Ayn Rand’s work and influence in this piece written on the centenary of her birth.
G.I. Suicide Bombers?
Today’s proposal by the administration that brought us (and them) interminable war in the Middle East to greatly increase the death benefit for combatants may incent American soldiers to take more risks in battle, especially on bad days.
Bush Wants More Jailed Citizens in Russia and China
“Intellectual Property” is the sticking point in US support for Russia to join the World Trade Organization. Meanwhile, this headline is an attention grabber: “Bush Wants China to Send Copyright Violators to Jail.” The irony is ghastly: strengthen your state and jail your entrepreneurs or we won’t trade.
French Book on The Economics of Patents and Copyrights
The Economics of Patents and Copyrights, by French researchers Francois Leveque and Yann Meniere of the Ecole des mines de Paris (an engineering university), is available for free, under the Creative Commons License. It concludes (p. 102):
The abolition or preservation of intellectual property protection is ... not just a purely theoretical quesiton.
Cantor on Popular Culture
Paul Cantor on his book Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in An Age of Globalization:
Rothbard on Liberty and Order
M.N. Rothbard, 1956, Submitted to National Review, but rejected:
Microsoft in Wonderland
European antitrust regulators have taken the worst of American antitrust “analysis,” argues DT Armentano, and made it even worse.
