Despite scaremongering to the contrary, Haitian immigrants don’t eat cats, and have much lower crime rates than native-born Americans. There are some broader lessons to be learned from this episode. The cat-eating hysteria is even worse than the usual scenario of nativists holding an entire immigrant group responsible for the … Continue reading Lessons of the Haitian Migrant Cat Scare
Being continuously asked to give and not to take away, to intervene and not to harm, state rulers will use up all their discretionary power just to remain in command. They have to promise more to outbid their political competitors. The state will thus need more and more economic power. … Continue reading The Rise of the Plantation State
Will the liars and hacks who covered up Biden’s cognitive decline face any consequences? Meanwhile, Trump’s own considerable lying, most consequentially about the integrity of the 2020 election, will also befoul the political atmosphere, driving the headline presidential race further downward into a spiral of hyperbolic bilge. https://reason.com/2024/09/03/when-bidens-bubble-wrap-burst/
It’s hard to oppose “transparency,” “common sense,” and “informed choices.” But labeling mandates always fall heaviest on the smallest of businesses. It is very easy for seemingly “commonsense” transparency reform to give way to more alarmist and intense health warnings on booze and, eventually, more draconian restrictions on alcohol sales and higher booze taxes. https://reason.com/2024/08/24/transparency-mandate-would-burden-small-brewers-and-distilleries/
Dear Editor, I am writing to express my wholehearted support for Chase Oliver in the upcoming election. As a candidate, Chase embodies the principles of integrity, transparency, and genuine care for our country. His fresh perspective and innovative ideas are exactly what we need to bring positive change to our … Continue reading Letter to the Editor
No muss. No fuss. No complicated paperwork. No uncertainty. Taking the dog to the vet was more like taking the car to the shop than a doctor’s visit. We went in, they told us what our options would cost, and we chose.
The two dominant parties are off in la-la land, unaware of the colossal growth of the welfare state, the regulatory state, and the warfare state. They generally mistake the symptoms for the causes and sometimes confuse the problems with the solutions.
Aside from raising our moral hackles, price controls have demonstrable effects on wellbeing: price controls increase poverty and hunger. Contrary to the utopian dreams of policymakers, price controls distort market activity in perverse ways. They are meant to lower prices on goods and make it easier for people to acquire … Continue reading Cuban Food Shortages: Another Red Flag
American slavery was horrible—and far from unique. Pointing out how abusive white people were is not going to get black Americans any more capital. Most problems in the modern black community don’t have anything to do with historical ethnic conflict 160 years ago… Racism didn’t increase between 1960 and the … Continue reading Slavery Was a Global Phenomenon
There is a reason that most countries don’t tax total assets — and it’s not generosity. Rather, it is because such taxes are unproductive. As might be expected, wealth taxes lead to capital flight and brain drain; they cause a drop in savings and investment, as well as entrepreneurship. They … Continue reading French Exports to Avoid: Wealth Taxes
Fact check: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is the leader of the Socialist Party. Under their idealized system, socialists claim, the government’s centralized redistribution of resources will be fair, equal, and democratic. Yet it certainly says something about such a system that it collapses into outright tyranny every time it is … Continue reading The New York Times Thinks ‘Brutal Capitalism,’ Not Socialism, Ruined Venezuela
You’ve heard that a task tends to expand to fill the allotted time. The same is true of budgets and spending: a project expands to fill the resources allotted to it, and it is easy from that point to say, “if only we had more resources.”
The response to anything that doesn’t function optimally has too often been more government, regardless of level and, overwhelmingly since the New Deal, to the benefit of politicians’ electoral prospects.
The Townshend Acts of 1767 imposed these indirect taxes on imports to the American colonies, including glass, paint, lead, paper, and tea. The colonists weren’t fooled. They knew these tariffs were another attempt by Parliament to raise revenue without their consent and exert control over the colonies. They knew who … Continue reading A Lesson on Tariffs and Free Lunches From the American Revolution
Ohio Libertarians turned in more than 88,000 petition signatures, including signatures from all 88 counties, to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office to regain their status as a recognized minor party, state Libertarian Party Chair Dustin Nanna said. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/07/ohio-libertarian-party-files-thousands-of-signatures-to-regain-state-recognition.html
Those of us who want to keep government small and strictly limited — and, hence, who want individuals to have very wide latitude to make whatever peaceful choices they wish in markets — are far outnumbered by individuals who distrust markets to deliver enough of the goods to enough of … Continue reading Arguments Against Markets
Trump’s tariffs—in addition to those since imposed by President Joe Biden—continue to raise prices for Americans. In fact, promising great economic results and not achieving them is key to Trump’s record: After announcing the $200 billion deal in the first place, he tweeted that “it will bring both the USA … Continue reading Trump Advisor Admits Trade War Against China Failed
