The term “market failure” came into frequent use by economists during the 20th century.

Martha Stewart, one of our most productive citizens, is being targeted for destruction by our most unproductive entity, the federal government. To understand the law of insider trading, writes James Ostrowski, you have to be a real insider. Yet, ignorance of the law is no excuse (unless you are a judge).

Don’t expect Amtrak to go away any time soon, despite the facts that its demise would be a cause of rejoicing for most of the country and that there is no justification for federal involvement in transportation found anywhere in the Constitution. The power of entrenched bureaucrats to create dependents of both politicians and their voters underscores a major reason why.

The Federal Reserve is continuing to experiment with new, more counterfeit-proof paper money. Recently, it was big faces, along with the introduction of a variety of other difficult-to-counterfeit characteristics into our Federal Reserve Notes. Next, maybe, it will be color. Or, writes Clifford Thies, perhaps the real issue is not the color on the back of the money, but money’s real backing.

For the time being, the Fed’s decision makers have decided to keep the federal funds rate target unchanged at 1.75 percent. They hinted, however, that if the economy were to slow further, they would lower the rate. 

Some commentators have protested that the Fed should not lower rates because doing so will dilute the strength of this tool in “fighting” a future economic slump. A rate of 1 percent leaves little wiggle room.

News reports now indicate that WorldCom’s overstatement of its profits in the last few years may exceed the $3.8 billion initially reported, perhaps by as much as an additional $3.3 billion, maybe even more. But whatever the ultimate figure may be—$7.1 billion or even $10 billion—it pales into insignificance in comparison with the overstatement of profits regularly engineered by the U.S. government.