The great news for humanity: Economic freedom around the world is on the rise. This means liberation for millions and billions of people. What a change from 20 years ago, when so many lived under despotism and socialist slavery. These people are freer, and getting freer. More people avail themselves to the global division of …
A month ago, a family I know returned from a trip in which they stayed in an ordinary hotel off the interstate in Virginia. They arrived late and left the next morning. The parents slept in the bed while the kids slept on the sleeper sofa. The kids had red welts all over their faces …
You know the cliches: It’s a small world after all We are the world. Globalism rules Earth is our neighborhood now and every citizen is a next-door neighbor. All that’s more or less true in the digital sector. I’ve emailed and texted using translation programs that allow me to speak with people in languages I …
“How the heck does this thing work?” I struggled with the new can opener for 20 minutes before giving up. This thing doesn’t work. Has the government wrecked the can opener too? Hmmm, maybe I should read the instructions. I had done the “guy thing” and attempted to use a new product without bothering to …
Cover the kids’ ears! Hide their eyes! Shuffle the weak and frail from the room! A politician running for president has uttered a heresy that brings into question the holy grail of democratic politics. Romney has failed to pretend as if the country is one big happy family that uses our glorious voting system to …
In announcing QE3, Ben Bernanke’s words betrayed not the slightest doubt that this is the right thing. More Fed bond purchases, combined with three more years of zero interest rates, he said, will quicken economic growth and cause unemployment to fall. And the punditry class all nodded in unison. I know that this is government …
What kind of events are worth reporting on in real time, with updates every few seconds? Such events have to be pretty dramatic. Well, the release of the iPhone 5 apparently qualifies. The tech blogs were all over it, and so were the wire services and big papers. A moment to celebrate? Sure! It was …
The instant the Fed announced QE3, an unlimited program of bond buying with fake money until the end of time, the speculation about what it would mean went viral. Does this mean that recovery is around the corner? Or does it signal a coming hyperinflation? Or perhaps more deflation stemming from liquidation? The reaction of …
“All the profits of drug trafficking and none of the risk.” That’s how the prosecutor in a federal criminal case described Carlos Garcia’s smuggling operation that has landed him in the federal pen for 13 months. Before wearing leg irons and striped pajamas, Garcia was a top executive in Marcone Inc., a leading supplier of …
The movie Inception (2010) directed by Christopher Nolan, is one of the few films I’ve seen that takes the idea of ideas themselves seriously. It’s about a team of experts that specializes in corporate espionage by extracting information from dreams. This time, their job is much harder: They are asked to implant a new idea …