Big Government

The Anti-Federalist "Brutus" predicted 200 years ago how invasive our tax system would become.

Moral hazard is a vital concept for economics. We should be careful not to let critics trivialize or dismiss it; when they do, calls for government intervention and special privileges are seldom far behind.

The pragmatist looks for areas where the economy and society fall short of the Garden of Eden, and these, of course, abound. Poverty, unemployment, old people with scurvy, young people with cavities — the list is indeed endless.

The Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture sponsored by Hunter Lewis

California is on the verge of increasing the statewide minimum wage to $15, from $10. According to one pro-minimum wage policy advisor, "It would mean a raise for one of every three workers in the state."

Statistics, so vital to statism, its namesake, is also the State's Achilles' heel.

Recessions are good for an economy because they involve a resolution process, but a big recession for this boom town could be great for the world economy.

Those who advocate equality of income distribution overlook the most important point, namely, that the total available for distribution, the annual product of social labor, is not independent of the manner in which it is divided.

If allowing markets to operate represents an "ideology" to most people, so be it. I would argue that markets represent a lack of ideology. More importantly, markets provide far and away the most practical approaches to difficult problems like terrorism.

For the Republican elites, it probably seemed like business as usual when the 2016 primary election started. But in a country where people are truly worried about their economic future, the old rules don't apply.