While the politicians and their media allies prattle on about "winners" and "losers" in the Microsoft antitrust case, they miss the larger story, one that has become a typical American tale: the ongoing assault of the Leviathan State upon the once free and productive business sector.
Following his first airline trip since the September 11 attacks, Mark Thornton gives his account of the federal government's attempts to regulate and regiment airport and airplane security.
What the Misesians have done in Guatemala is create an intellectual infrastructure that promotes a hard-core attachment to freedom among the business class, which dovetails very nicely with the working classes' instinctive opposition to taxes.
Patriotism and nationalism are powerful forces weighing on the public conscience in the aftermath of the attacks. It makes it very unpopular to ask certain questions and to wonder certain things.
Once again, we are back to trusting the government to protect us, even at a time when property owners are begging for the right to provide their own protection.
While not quite Keynesian pyramids or payments to farmers to plow up their surplus crops, this is still, sadly, yet another New Deal in the making.
It is no surprise that in our current crisis we see economic fallacies calling for "temporary" government interventions in the economy popping up like mushrooms after a rain.
No institution has a greater incentive to increase airline security than the airlines themselves, who have both property and paying customers to protect.
In a usual wartime situation, the government massively expands and then falls back only partially after it is over. The present circumstances, however, are even worse than wartime.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development says it wants to eliminate tax havens because their practices are harmful, if not criminal. What it really wants is to eliminate tax competition.
