The fact that Carlo Ponzi's investment scheme lasted less than a year--while the government's "Ponzi scheme" has lasted, through good times and bad, for more than half a century--only suggests that Ponzi should have applied his talents as a politician, where he could've fleeced his victims legally.
The brutal punishing of adults for the substances they ought to be able to ingest, inhale, or inject at their own peril is based on a parochial and moribund prior restraint argument. Considering the extent and severity of its assault on otherwise peaceable people, the state's conduct in the war on drugs befits the conduct of a criminal class, albeit a criminal class that enjoys the protection of the law.
To cascade onto George W. Bush the title of "great one" is merely a way of linking greatness with the ability to wage conflict and perpetuate the growth of the State. And nowhere is liberty infringed upon more than in times of war--a president's most useful crisis for manipulating power to the advantage of his office and its administrators. From this cause, advancing statism determines who we are expected to deify as our redeemer.
The 1922 baseball antitrust exemption ruling is one of the few remaining precedents adhering to the earlier, limited-government understanding of the commerce clause. So while some local sports fans may support further limiting baseball's antitrust exemption as a way to keep their teams from moving to another town, it comes at a constitutional price that is too high.
Price fixing occurs when individuals from competing firms agree on what prices to charge for their products and services. Because private price fixing is illegal in the United States, these meetings are done in private and carry potential criminal penalties if the participants are apprehended. However, lest one think price fixing is a shady activity, consider that governments at all levels are the primary price fixers.
In the weeks following the terror attacks, calls have come from politicians and journalists to "federalize" airport security by making workers who screen passengers and baggage government employees. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and others in Congress have declared that "passengers won't feel safe again" unless the government takes this step.
This past September, the state government of South Carolina came under fire for issuing a special license plate bearing the slogan "Choose Life." Affronted abortion-rights groups quickly filed suit, claiming that the state was violating the first and fourteenth amendments by failing to offer a "Choose Choice" or similar specialty plate. Florida's and Louisiana's "Choose Life" plates faced similar court challenges.
Almost any food you can name--if you study its history--has something to say about economics, politics, history, or culture. For whatever reason, tea seems to teach more lessons by its history than almost anything else we could eat or drink.
The poor security of U.S. airlines is a predictable outcome of government regulations and subsidies. Only through complete privatization of the industry will consumers be able to fly cheaply and safely.
No government can live up to its billing as a semi-divine problem solver. Government intervention is not an alternative to the market; it merely creates a different kind of market full of con men selling very sour lemons.
