Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory has a beef with Mary Sheila Gall , President Bush’s nominee to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It seems that Gall once “made a derogatory remark about ‘the federal nanny state.’” This remark, says McGrory, has “come back to haunt her” because, apparently, the phrase “nanny state” is now seen in
In response to the Code Red computer worm, CNET News Executive Editor David Coursey , in his column entitled Cure for Code Red: An Internet border patrol? advocates some measures that, while they may be intended to prevent future outbreaks, would instead ensure a further diminution of our freedoms. Stating that “if our homes were as much under
As the legend goes, the scheme that would make Carlo Ponzi a household name occurred to Carlo when he was a young man. Carlo would sit on his front steps in Boston and watch his neighbors return home from a day’s work. It was during one of these daydreaming sessions that his innovation struck. Predictably enough, the first victim of what would
The economy is slowing down rapidly, according to many government statistics and economic indicators. It’s slowing down so rapidly, in fact, that the likelihood of recession seems much higher now than it has in years. Paul Krugman is worried. But the prospect of recession is not what has Krugman worried. “Recessions,” he tells us in his December
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman usually writes about how deplorable tax cuts would be. But every so often he takes a break from the fight against tax cuts to write about the energy mess in California. Krugman has been informing his readers that “deregulation” is the cause of California’s electric power morass. His language has been
The government tells you that your taxes are being cut. What you may not have heard is that you may soon be drafted into an entirely separate tax system that receives very little public attention outside publications for tax accountants. The name of the second tier of tax is the AMT, the alternative minimum tax. If you work too hard, are too
I was making my first airplane trip after the September 11 attack, and boy was I afraid. I was headed right up through Terrorist Alley—from Montgomery, Alabama, through Memphis, Tennessee, to St. Louis, Missouri, and back again. Old Bin Laden himself could not have designed such a daredevil adventure. The first thing you notice about the new and
The Bush administration has announced its support for “sky marshals” on commercial aircraft, with the hope that an armed federal agent will deter future hijackings. On the downside, however, the administration opposes the easiest route of simply permitting the airlines to arm themselves and thereby take responsibility for their own security.
For free traders, the advent of the World Trade Organization was always a two-edged sword. On one side was the possibility that the bureaucracy might deter arbitrary acts of protectionist folly, if only by its ability to draw attention to them and debate them in a forum attended by political elites around the world. To some extent, it may have
There was a time when the word reform described a process of renewal, of change, and of taking new steps towards correcting a problem. With the rise of campaign finance reform, it is clear that this is no longer the case. A linguistic transformation has occurred, for reform is now an inside-the-Beltway buzzword that denotes the perpetuation of
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.