US Taxpayers Subsidizing Nationalized Iraqi Factories
This fascinating round-up of the Iraqi economic situation, in the New York Times, puts the most interesting information at the end (according to what seems to be the standard NYT practice).
Job-Creation Schemes Don’t Work
Free-market economists like myself attack government tax-and-spend policies as being damaging to prosperity, accusing the government of “sucking money” or “leeching resources” out of the economy. We claim that taxes damage not only the welfare of the person from whom they are taken, but the whole country.
Politicians, supporters of state spending, and even questioning students often challenge this negative view of taxation with the positive effects of public spending. In essence, the argument runs something like this:
A Forecast Based on Money Supply
The recent weakening in the growth momentum of money M2 and M3 drew the attention of some Wall Street analysts. They think that a weakening in the growth momentum of money may be signalling bad news for the economy and financial markets in the months ahead. However, it is questionable whether the popular definitions of money are valid economic indicators. This writer suggests that focusing on the money AMS definition is likely to produce better analysis.
Animals are Socialists?
It may come as a surprise, but apparently animals live in the wild in peaceful socialist communities and are not subject to the law of scarcity. Apparently bears have no trouble locating plentiful and unlimited food sources and voluntarily share their resources with not only all other bears but all other animals as well (except humans). This is what I learned from the film Brother Bear this weekend, possibly the most overtly manipulative children’s film I have ever come across. Its explicit 
Mises v. the Green-Eyed Monster
A classic from 1987, by Bradley Miller, now online: “Mises vs the Green-Eyed Monster”:
Animal Rights
This column highlights some of the issues being discussed. No Rights for Animals! I also recommend the uncompromising writing on www.ecoNot.com.
Questioning Disaster Aid
The NYT runs a piece by David Rosenbaum that raises fundamental questions about federal disaster aid. The hook is the soaring number of these disasters and the way they are used politically: “Mr. Bush’s total for the year could approach the record of 75 disasters declared by President Clinton in 1996, his re-election year.”
Blogs as an Alternative Medium
A new piece in City Journal explains in part how blogs are changing the terms of political debate by exposing mainstream media distortions and providing an alternative analysis of events.
The Recovery that Wasn’t a Recovery
Financial writer Jim Puplava presents a three-part series on the state of the economy:
Right to Emigrate
Today Lew Rockwell comments on George Bush’s strange call for Syria and Iran to prevent its citizens from leaving the country and coming to Iraq, thereby seeming to embrace the totalitarian idea of forcibly preventing the right of exit (think: East Germany). On the same day, the US announced it has set up exit controls around Uja, Iraq, such that no one can come or go without a special ID card.
