Friday September 3, 2010     Last Update: 6 hr ago

All the articles that relate to "regulation"

View entire tag cloud
Article Published Author Rating Comments

Computers Plug and Play - Hospitals Plug and Pray

 Simple, avoidable mistakes can be fatal in the high-tech world of modern hospitals. The New York Times reports: Thirty-five weeks pregnant, Robin Rodgers was vomiting and losing weight, so her doctor hospitalized her and ordered that she be fed thro...		 Aug 30, 10 Will Offensicht 0 1

The SEC Gums New Jersey

Having been criticized at length for not catching Bernie Madoff or any number of other financial scam artists, the Securities and Exchange Commission was rewarded for its failures by being given a vast array of new powers and a large budget increase by t...		 Aug 25, 10 Will Offensicht 0 0

The Follies of Mark-to-Market

It's a longstanding US Government tradition that when an agency really fouls up, they're punished by being forced to take a massive budget increase. When the CIA and the FBI overlooked the 911 terrorists, their budgets were nearly doubled and a massive ...		 Aug 23, 10 Will Offensicht 0 0

America's Frozen Economy

The Great Obama Recession, we are told, ended some months ago. Unemployment has remained roughly stable and corporate profits are up. Time to celebrate the beginning of the recovery! It certainly doesn't seem like recovery down here on the ground, t...		 Aug 9, 10 Petrarch 0 0

Our Government-Regulated Oil Spill

The oil business has become the latest industry that our government loves to hate. It's no surprise that the New York Times would publish "As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Billions From Subsidies." As we know from their past articles, the Times ...		 Jul 6, 10 Will Offensicht 0 4

The Dirty Deeds of Bag Nags

As we all join in the Moral Equivalent Of War (meow!) to Save the Planet, it's inevitably necessary that "sacrifices must be made." President Obama, who spends the winter basking in the tropical heat of the Oval Office at taxpayer expense previously war...		 Jun 28, 10 Kermit Frosch 0 2

Beam Me Up, Barack!

Much as jazz is the most versatile of music forms, science fiction and its cousin science fantasy offer near-infinite scope for an author's imagination. A good SF writer can create a world that not only does not exist, and has not, but almost certainly ...		 May 27, 10 Petrarch 0 1

Big News: Government Policies Don't Accomplish Much

In a shocking repudiation of their entire philosophy of governance, the New York Times reported that there are limitations to the effectiveness of government policies and programs: Roughly a century ago, many Swedes immigrated to America. They’ve don...		 May 21, 10 Will Offensicht 0 3

The Pill: 50 Years of Unintended Bureaucratic Consequences

The birth control pill was approved on Mothers' Day 50 years ago. Although there was a great deal of controversy about the pill's effect on morality, sexual behavior, and family structure, nobody seems to have realized at the time that the pill represen...		 May 19, 10 Will Offensicht 0 1

Power vs Liberty - A Delicate Balance

"Anarchy" is defined as a state of society without government or law. There was a period of anarchy all over Europe after the Roman empire collapsed around 476 AD. Although smallish local gangs were able to rule bits of territory here and there, it too...		 May 7, 10 Will Offensicht 0 2

Public Watchdogs Ogle Privates

The New York Daily News tells us on what's really going on in government agencies who're supposed to guard our financial markets against fraud, deceit, and the next boom-and-bust cycle: The country's top financial watchdogs turned out to be horndogs w...		 Apr 29, 10 Will Offensicht 0 1

Mining for More Bureaucrats

The New York Times reports that there were no survivors from the recent explosion at a mine in Montcoal, WV. In their reaction to this unhappy event, the Times reveals their view that bureaucratic regulators are always cloaked in virtue whereas busine...		 Apr 12, 10 Will Offensicht 0 7

Angel Bureaucrats vs Business Devils?

It's hard to imagine amidst the pageantry of Toyota's executives being called on the carpet in front of pontificating Congressmen because of a supposed manufacturing defect that has yet to even be definitively found, but there was a time when this would ...		 Mar 22, 10 Petrarch 0 1

Snaky Politicians Doom the New Hampshire Advantage

In "Snake Market Crash," the Wall Street Journal reports that even though stock prices are getting back to something approaching normal, the market for exotic snakes has collapsed: Early in 2009, "investment grade" big snakes—critters with genetic mu...		 Mar 12, 10 Will Offensicht 0 3

Obama Goes Off The Deep End, Bans Fishing?

Appalling news from Washington is coming so thick and fast these days that it's impossible to keep track of it all. What's more, some reports are so outlandish that they seem like they must be from the Onion, yet are perfectly true. For instance, who w...		 Mar 11, 10 Hobbes 0 4

The Chinese Way to Manage Stem-Cell Research

The Economist reports that Chinese researchers are doing world-class stem-cell research, but they identify a problem - they don't think that Chinese medical research is regulated tightly enough. Their article opens: In the field of stem cells, China ...		 Mar 5, 10 Will Offensicht 0 9

Obama's Clowns Crashing Toyota's Circus

By now, everyone who follows the news in America has observed our government heaping scorn on Toyota because of suspicions that design flaws in their cars lead to "Sudden unintended acceleration." Judging from the welter of words coming out of Washingto...		 Mar 2, 10 Will Offensicht 0 7

Scragged Takes a Drink and a Wrong Turn

The New York Times reports: The [New York State] Governor is taking aim at obesity caused by sugary drinks; Mr. Eusebio worries that the proposed tax would slim down the beverage industry, which he said pays $6.7 billion in wages statewide and generat...		 Feb 9, 10 Petrarch 0 3

Censorship, the Super Bowl, and Net Neutrality

Reuters reports that there's so much interest in the annual Super Bowl TV extravaganza that organizations are suspected of submitting ads that they know won't make it onto the air just to get free publicity by claiming that they were discriminated again...		 Feb 8, 10 Will Offensicht 0 31

Obamacare Delenda Est

Long before the Pax Romana, centuries before Julius Caesar, long even before there were any Roman emperors, the republican nation of Rome was just another regional Mediterranean power threatened by enemies on all sides. With two millennia of hindsight, ...		 Jan 20, 10 Petrarch 0 1

The Business of America Is... Government?

The business of America is business. - President Calvin Coolidge From the founding of this country, our leaders have clearly understood the essential importance of private enterprise, and most of our leaders have participated in it themselves. Geo...		 Dec 17, 09 Petrarch 0 1

McDonnell's Victory and Virginia's Traffic 3

Northern Virginia's roads are a gridlocked mess that urgently require drastic measures; that, more than rejection of Mr. Obama, led to Bob McDonnell's recent triumphant election as Virginia's governor. He has a plan of attack, which is more than his opp...		 Dec 4, 09 Petrarch 0 2

The Real Financial Villains Will Never Stand Up

In an article "How the Scapegoats Escaped," the New York Times described mistakes prosecutors made in trying to convict two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers of fraud: In short, the prosecution blew it - on two counts. First, in devising the original ...		 Nov 25, 09 Will Offensicht 0 6

The Looming Nuclear Medicine Crisis

We've written about bureaucrats making it harder to find cancer cures by making it difficult to enroll people in studies of new cancer treatments and we've told how regulations are forcing certain types of heart disease research to be done in other count...		 Nov 12, 09 Will Offensicht 0 5

The Power To Regulate Healthcare is the Power to Destroy It

On Aug. 2, 2009, the New York Times reported that the government's "war on cancer" isn't going particularly well: Forty years after President Richard M. Nixon declared war on cancer, death rates have barely changed. Cancer researchers will tell you...		 Oct 30, 09 Will Offensicht 0 6

There Are No Natural Limits to Regulation

We at Scragged have written over and over about the inability of government regulation to get things right. Recently, we discussed the current conundrum of the city of Des Moines, Iowa: its sewers, strongly built in days of old by long-departed honest...		 Oct 28, 09 Will Offensicht 0 3

Our FDA Wants More Power to Kill Sick People

There are many reasons to oppose greater government influence over our lives. We've pointed out over and over that government doesn't do anything efficiently from delivering mail to running railroads. Government waste has been with us since the dawn of...		 Oct 1, 09 Will Offensicht 0 0

Obama Takes On SkyNet

The Internet is fulminating this week with reports of a new bill in the Senate that would give the President authority to, well, take over the Internet. According to CNet, the bill ...would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" r...		 Sep 3, 09 Petrarch 0 1

The Wrongs of Rights 5: The Forgotten 10th Amendment

In this series, we've examined the difference between core natural human rights and civil rights; seen how so-called positive "rights" are not rights at all but rather an anti-right that destroys real rights, and looked at the devastating consequences th...		 Jul 27, 09 Petrarch 0 1

Don't Let Government Bedbugs Bite

Some time ago, we warned about the dangers of relying too much on the "Precautionary Principle." This principle, beloved of all Luddites, demands that no new technology be introduced until it can be proved that it's safe. If carried out literally, the ...		 May 11, 09 Will Offensicht 0 1

Green Go the Mowers, Oh!

Spring is in the air, and one of the most memorable sounds of spring is the revving of running lawnmowers, awakening from their winter hibernation. Lawnmower technology is an interesting little corner of antique engineering, especially when compared w...		 Apr 24, 09 Kermit Frosch 0 7

How Many More Must Die? Regulate Knives NOW!

The Wall Street Journal of March 30, 2009 page 2 article "Man Kills Two Sisters Before Being Shot By Police" says: A man fatally stabbed his 17-year-old sister, decapitated his 5-year-old sister during her birthday party and then headed toward his 9-y...		 Apr 7, 09 Hobbes 0 2

Government Medical Policies are Bad Medicine

When government chooses to use its awesome tax powers to create a subsidy, it has profound and undying effects on the economics of the affected industries. Most government subsidies go on forever – solar energy subsidies started 30 years ago during the ...		 Mar 31, 09 Will Offensicht 0 1

The Price of Financial "Safety"

For anyone who owns a financial investment - which is to say, any American with savings or a pension of any kind - hardly a day goes by without becoming palpably poorer. The Obama bear market continues to tear through the nest eggs of rich and poor alik...		 Mar 19, 09 Petrarch 0 5

Snooping On Snoops

Hardly a day goes by when we are not reminded, yet again, that John Edward's ranting about "Two Americas" is absolutely true, though not in the way in which he intended. If you or I were to decline to pay our taxes, for example, we'd shortly be taking u...		 Feb 24, 09 Hobbes 0 0

Our Perpetual Government-Sponsored Food Fight

 Anybody who follows nutrition advice in the popular press can be forgiven for thinking that dietary advice is unreliable and uncertain. We've heard that caffeine is bad for the heart, then that it's good for the heart, then that it's bad in certain cas...		 Feb 23, 09 Will Offensicht 0 5

In Unions There Is Strength - For A While

I was born in December 1940, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Steel Town USA. Standing at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers which form the Ohio river and glancing along each river, one saw only the steel industry lining both shores as f...		 Feb 2, 09 Guest Editorial 0 2

Bureaucrats Try Herding Cats

 Our government employees famously insist on helping us whether we need it or not. Logically, sooner or later, there must come a time when all real problems are receiving government attention leaving only imaginary problems for bureaucrats to sink their...		 Jan 15, 09 Will Offensicht 0 4

Bureaucracy Stalls Green Cars

 The blogger network Green Options published an article "Upstart Chinese Car Company BYD Releases Plug-In Hybrid. See What You Can Do With No Regulations?" The article started: China-based BYD has introduced a plug-in hybrid that can be plugged into...		 Dec 23, 08 Will Offensicht 0 5

The Tide Turns Against Global Warming

 Those who believe that mankind is a rapacious scourge upon Mother Earth have never had so much to celebrate as they do today. With the election of Barack Obama and sweeping Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, environmentalists are poised ...		 Dec 9, 08 Kermit Frosch 0 1

World Toilet Summit Plumbs New Depths

On November 19, 2008, in commemoration of "World Toilet Day," the Australian site news.com.au published "Experts call for end of flushing toilets on World Toilet Day." The story opened: AS the world celebrates World Toilet Day today, sanitation exper...		 Nov 25, 08 Will Offensicht 0 3

Silicon Valley Dies Like The Massachusetts Miracle

 We've now elected a government made up mostly of political liberals. The left will shortly have control of the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and in due time thanks to the power of appointment, the judiciary as well. Having bee...		 Nov 19, 08 Will Offensicht 0 5

The Big One That Got Away

The New York Times electronic edition of 20 October 2008 had an article about the economy which opened: The hardest thing about analyzing the Bush administration is this: Some things are true even if George Bush believes them. This sounds like a ty...		 Oct 31, 08 Will Offensicht 0 2

"Barefoot Doctors" in America?

We've had another reaction to our article claiming that there's really only one problem in health care - the issue of limiting demand. With the development of so many extremely expensive medical procedures, there's no limit to the amount of health car...		 Oct 27, 08 Will Offensicht 0 2

No Custom Meds for You!

One of the trickiest exercises in governance is finding the right balance between liberty and license. Although many liberals who favor more government intervention in the economy and in our personal lives will admit that the United States is not as fre...		 Oct 23, 08 Will Offensicht 0 1

Forcing Cancer Research Offshore

We've discussed the urgent necessity of finding new energy sources. Maintaining our current levels of energy consumption is essential not only to maintaining our lifestyle, but to maintaining our food supply. If we lose enough technology or we have to ...		 Oct 17, 08 Will Offensicht 0 3

Greens Grasping at Your Straws

This past weekend I patronized a restaurant chain owned by a tycoon well known for his environmentalist activism. As you'd expect, the food was of good quality; whether it was truly "all natural" or not I couldn't say, but it certainly tasted a far cry ...		 Oct 13, 08 Kermit Frosch 0 0

Innovate or Starve

It's not often that we find ourselves in agreement with the New York Times, but they recently said something unusually sensible. Their electronic version published "Georgia on my Mind," the blurb for which said, "Barack Obama and John McCain need to foc...		 Oct 2, 08 Will Offensicht 0 1

The EPA Finally Leaves Well Enough Alone

The Wall Street Journal reports: In an unusual blow against a big federal flood-control project, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday rejected a proposal to build a huge water pump intended to reduce flooding in the Mississippi Delta, saying...		 Sep 12, 08 Will Offensicht 0 3

Detroit Deserves 40 Billion Bucks

 In a time when a Presidential campaign can burn through half a billion dollars, it's easy to overlook relatively small stuff. Not only that, there's an unending line of individuals, companies, and pols' relatives with their hands out for government lar...		 Sep 8, 08 Will Offensicht 0 10

Hillary and Geek Pride

We stand amazed at Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic Convention. She accurately pointed out that America faces a host of problems, we expected that from the opposition, but wonder of wonders, she told us the right answer to our problems: We ...		 Aug 28, 08 Will Offensicht 0 3

Hole in the Ozone, or Hole in the Head?

With today's constant drumbeat of global warming alarmism, it's easy to forget that this is by no means the first time the environmentalists have threatened the End of the World. It's not; in fact, they seem to make a regular habit of it. While the med...		 Aug 27, 08 Will Offensicht 0 7

Nuking E.coli

In a legendary episode of the classic TV show Gilligan's Island, the castaways find a crate of vegetable seeds washed up on the beach and plant them. Their garden grows insanely fast and the vegetables themselves are exceptionally large, but somewhat od...		 Aug 26, 08 Petrarch 0 13

Liberal Jujitsu to Break Freedom's Back

 One of the more gratifying aspects to this year's Best Election Ever has been watching the mainstream media pull out all the stops to anoint their Chosen One. From shivers up the leg, to carrying the Obamessiah around Europe on the backs of all three n...		 Aug 18, 08 Will Offensicht 0 4

Video Games: School for Evil?

Under the headline "Thailand Halts 'Grand Theft Auto' sales after murder" Reuters reports: A Thai video game distributor halted sales of "Grand Theft Auto" on Monday after a teenager confessed to robbing and murdering a taxi driver while trying to rec...		 Aug 15, 08 Will Offensicht 0 22

Will Bureaucrats Let Detroit Save Itself?

We all know that the US operations of all our auto manufacturers are in deep trouble, but things aren't quite what they seem. Their troubles in the US market are all too real. The New York Times reports: In the latest sign of the deepening trouble...		 Aug 11, 08 Will Offensicht 0 3

What's Barney Frank Smoking?

 CNN reports: The U.S. should stop arresting responsible marijuana users, Rep. Barney Frank said Wednesday, announcing a proposal to end federal penalties for Americans carrying fewer than 100 grams, almost a quarter-pound, of the substance... "The va...		 Aug 1, 08 Hobbes 0 1

Mortgages' Regulation Addiction

For Americans who wholeheartedly believe in the idea of capitalism "red in tooth and claw," the past month has been a time for serious re-examination of your premises and assumptions. On every hand, we find what we thought were august business enterpris...		 Jul 23, 08 Petrarch 0 4

Bust-Up Over Caveat Emptor

 We at Scragged welcome (well, hope for, actually!) responses from readers and have been blessed with generally high-quality comments. Rare indeed is the foul-mouthed flame who must be deleted or edited. As the purpose of Scragged is to get people to t...		 Jul 8, 08 Petrarch 0 10

Affirmative Action at the Crossroads

Some time back, Scragged predicted that affirmative action might become a Presidential issue this year. In pointing out that Michelle Obama's feelings had been badly hurt by affirmative action at Princeton University, we speculated that, as Mr. Nixon wa...		 Jul 4, 08 Will Offensicht 0 2

The Long Trains Roll

The Associated Press reports: A nearly $15 billion Amtrak bill passed the House Wednesday as lawmakers rallied around an alternative for travelers saddled with soaring gas prices. The bipartisan bill, which passed by a veto-proof margin of 311-104, w...		 Jun 13, 08 Petrarch 0 0

Scragged's Endorsement for President

The home stretch of this never-ending presidential nominating process is fast upon us. Whether it's "official" now or later, the Democratic nominee is known, barring some miracle of political chicanery. Again barring a miracle, the Republican nominee h...		 Jun 10, 08 Petrarch 0 12

The Definition of Fascism

 For decades, the loony left has loved accusing the right of being fascist. After the defeat of the two fascist powers in WW2, that particular brand of politics has been held high as the standard for being the ultimate in evil, as, indeed, it should be....		 Jun 6, 08 Kermit Frosch 0 12

Cost? Not Our Problem!

Being as human as the rest of us, bureaucrats try to insulate themselves from the problems faced by rest of society. They don’t have to provide a product or service of any value because citizens are required to deal with them. The slower they work, the...		 Jun 3, 08 Will Offensicht 0 3

Death, Taxes, and Red Tape

To the old saying that the only certainties in life are death and taxes, we can add a new certainty - bureaucracy. In a story "City tightens its regulation and inspection of cranes," the International Herald Tribute reports: New York City ordered bro...		 Jun 2, 08 Will Offensicht 0 1

Bearly Rational

In a much-anticipated decision this week, President Bush's EPA has decided to declare the polar bear an endangered species, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto. Given the cheerleading of the media and political pressure from all 'round...		 May 16, 08 Kermit Frosch 0 1

Fatheads

The Chicago Tribune reports: Advocates for the plus-sized, particularly activists in the "fat acceptance" movement, want obesity to become a category legally protected against discrimination, like religion, race, age and sex... One such law, to ban di...		 May 7, 08 Hobbes 0 10

FAA Flies in the Face of Common Sense

In an article "American Airlines to cite FAA for flight fiasco," Reuters reports: American Airlines is poised to say in a report to be delivered on Friday that it wouldn't have had to cancel over 3,000 flights last month if a tentative agreement it ha...		 May 5, 08 Will Offensicht 0 3

Research Funding and the Confucian Cycle

American prosperity owes much to technical research. As technology increased agricultural productivity, fewer and fewer farmers were needed to feed our population. As people were able to move off the farm, labor was available for occupations such as ma...		 May 1, 08 Will Offensicht 0 2

McCain's Contradictory Lecture to Wall Street

Conservatives have many differences of opinion with Sen. John McCain, whether it be on the subject of amnesty for illegal aliens, on unconstitutional campaign-finance "reforms", or many other concerns large and small. The Senator's reputation as a maver...		 Mar 27, 08 Petrarch 0 4

Bottoms Up

TALLAHASSEE (CBS4.com) ― A proposed law currently making its way through the Florida legislature might help you with what can be an embarrassing problem. Here's the bottom line, the bill would be a mandate that all eating establishment must have enough t...		 Mar 17, 08 Kermit Frosch 0 2

Stop Loving Your Tax Credits!

Someone once said that the only two constants in life are death and taxes, but taxes, in a sense, are far worse than death. Death only comes once and when it does, it's final. In the US, taxes keep attacking your wealth long after your children and gra...		 Feb 26, 08 Von Hayek 0 16

1913: America's Worst Year - The Federal Reserve

December 23, 1913 John Steinbeck, author of The Grapes of Wrath, once said: "The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's a monster. Men made it, but they can't control it." In an effort to end the ups and downs of the business cy...		 Feb 21, 08 Fennoman 0 6

Government Don't Know Jack - Setting Standards

This is a multi-part series examining inherent conflicts between government and citizens. The goal of the series is to lay groundwork for avoiding the down-side of the Confucian Cycle. This series started with an article pointing out that the governm...		 Feb 20, 08 Will Offensicht 0 5

Must We Freeze in the Dark?

Not so long ago, Californians suffered rolling cutoffs in their electricity supply. The reason was simple -- nobody had been able to build an electric generating plant in or near California for several decades. As more and more Californians wanted more...		 Feb 14, 08 Will Offensicht 0 7

Labor Law Lunacy

The Wall Street Journal on February 1, 2008 had a page one article In a French Twist, Infamous Trader Gets Hero Treatment. The article continues the saga of a low-ranking bond trader named Jerome Kerviel who cost the bank $7.2 billion by making unauthor...		 Feb 11, 08 Will Offensicht 0 2

Government Don't Know Jack: Regulation

This is a multi-part series examining inherent conflicts in government and the ultimate goal of avoiding the Confucian Cycle. This series started with an article pointing out that the government gets a piece of everybody's action through taxation. A ...		 Feb 7, 08 Will Offensicht 0 4

Government Don't Know Jack: Education

This is a multi-part series examining inherent conflicts in government and the ultimate goal of avoiding the Confucian Cycle. This series examines ways the government ought to be able to help the economy, assuming that politicians want the economy to ...		 Jan 31, 08 Will Offensicht 0 13

Government Don't Know Jack: Research

This is a multi-part series examining inherent conflicts in government with the ultimate goal of avoiding the Confucian Cycle. This series of articles addresses the intuitive belief that there ought to be something government could do to make the econ...		 Jan 29, 08 Will Offensicht 0 7

Government Don't Know Jack: Foreign Trade

This is a multi-part series examining inherent conflicts in government and the ultimate goal of avoiding the Confucian Cycle. The first article in this series listed a number of ways government can increase economic activity, and we discussed infrastr...		 Jan 25, 08 Will Offensicht 0 5

Government Don't Know Jack: Infrastructure

This is a multi-part series examining inherent conflicts in government and the ultimate goal of avoiding the Confucian Cycle. The first article in this series listed a number of ways the government can increase the amount of action in the economy if t...		 Jan 23, 08 Will Offensicht 0 1

Why the Market Crashed

Stock markets are imploding all over the world. Asian market values are dropping like a rock. The New York Times said: Markets in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney on Tuesday extended the losses they suffered Monday as fears of a recession roiled markets ...		 Jan 22, 08 Will Offensicht 0 5

Government Don't Know Jack: Introduction

As we've pointed out earlier, the government gets a piece of everybody's action through taxation. One way for government to get more tax revenue is to help businesses generate more action. We believe deeply that there are many things which government o...		 Jan 22, 08 Will Offensicht 0 2

Why Can't We have a Cheap Car?

The International Herald Tribune reports that Tata Motors, an Indian conglomerate which is about to buy Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford, has announced a $2,500 automobile. The 4-seater Nano, with an engine around 625 cc, will have a dealer price of 10...		 Jan 16, 08 Will Offensicht 0 19

Federalism = Governments Competing

 Microsoft has long argued that their monolithic near-monopoly of the Windows operating system and of Microsoft Office, both of which are found on almost every computer in the world, is actually a good thing for consumers. Because all the major pi...		 Dec 21, 07 Petrarch 0 4

Rodney King and the RKBA

RKBA is gun-speak for "The Right To Keep And Bear Arms." Often you hear the acronym when a believer says it. As far as I know, the American RKBA is the only such right written into a Constitution. Sweden, Switzerland, and Israel require young men...		 Dec 4, 07 Will Offensicht 0 1

Who Shrunk My Pie?

As we've noted before, governments always want more money. There are two ways governments can get more money - raise taxes so they get a bigger piece of the pie, or stimulate economic activity so they get the same percentage of a bigger pie. L...		 Nov 7, 07 Will Offensicht 0 3

It's a Big, Fat World

For some years now, it's been increasingly obvious that Americans are getting fatter by the day. Long the stuff of late-night comedians and dirty looks on international flights, obesity has now reached the point where serious engineering conseq...		 Oct 31, 07 Hobbes 0 1

Revenge on Mother Earth

 On page 11 of the Summer 2007 issue, the Wilson Quarterly reported on manatee preservation efforts in Florida. These slow-swimming sea creatures are often killed or injured by motorboats in coastal waters. They're known as "nature's speed ...		 Oct 29, 07 Will Offensicht 0 1

Twilight Zoning

All Americans remember the disaster of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans - though in reality, the devastation spread far wider than just that mess of a single city. Liberals ignored the mess that was made in Mississippi because the local govern...		 Oct 26, 07 Hobbes 0 1

A Man's Home is Whose Castle?

One of the hallmarks of President Bush's domestic policies, has been his use of the term "the ownership society." Simply put, this means trying to make sure that as many Americans as possible, have an investment in their own country. This can ...		 Oct 3, 07 Petrarch 0 0

The Second-Most Important Question in Health Care

 In a previous article, we asked how to keep people from going to the doctor when they aren't sick. Many people who haunt the doctor's office are simply lonely. The medical establishment pays attention, which makes them feel b...		 Sep 27, 07 Will Offensicht 0 4

Obama Helping Business?

Barack Obama's people joined my social network and asked, "How can government help small businesses?" The answer is obvious – government should do nothing to help any business, large or small. Businesses prosper by generating value for society. If a...		 Sep 18, 07 Will Offensicht 0 5

Would you like a side of Communism with that?

First, a preamble. Political writers often enjoy comparing their opponents to history's monsters whenever they can. This is because the end result speaks for itself. Assuming the comparison is well made, there is no need for further rebuke. The world ...		 Aug 24, 07 Von Hayek 0 3

Ethanol - The Perfect Boondoggle

Western society, with its tremendous need for energy, has been primarily petroleum based since at least the Second World War. If you consider transportation needs alone, dependence on oil goes back further than that, to the 1920s. As a fuel, oil-based ...		 Aug 9, 07 Petrarch 0 10

Simple is complex in all things non-government

Doing "nothing" seems simple. Commonly, doing "nothing" requires little thought or physical exertion. It demonstrates no prowess on the part of the performer, nor does it determine incompetence. But is it really possible to do "nothing"? No living thin...		 Jul 25, 07 Von Hayek 0 1