In Mao’s Great Leap forward of 1958, and then the Cultural Revolution of 1966 and following, millions suffered persecution and death. Collectivized land led to an extreme livestock shortage. Those who survived faced famine. Living things in general were disappearing. All forms of oil had vanished. If there was food to be had, it had …
Google’s new Motorola unit had great ambitions to serve customers and keep dazzling us with ever more spectacular things that enhance our lives. After all, the smartphone is easily the greatest consumer innovation of our time, and maybe of all time. It accomplishes amazing feats in a tiny package and represents a greater achievement of …
The longer the recession goes on, the more people are catching on to incredible fictions we’ve been told for five years. The political class and its allies said that they could make all things better if they created more debt, spent more money, printed trillions in phony money, made credit as cheap as possible, and …
School is back and so is the grim reality that whatever the government touches, it wrecks. Government has done more than touch education, moreover; it has deeply embedded itself at all levels, leaving just enough in the way of freedom to allow families to breath but not thrive. And the situation isn’t getting better. Without …
The web is packed with some of the greatest educational material on entrepreneurship and enterprise, material that didn’t exist a decade ago and is now within the mouse-click reach of vast swaths of humanity. Are we taking advantage of it? Doug French and I set out to collect the top 15 videos on entrepreneurship — …
On a flight the other day, I noticed that a third of the passengers were reading a certain best-selling book. It got me thinking. Every politically active group wants something from government, and government is happy to oblige. It’s even more obvious in the election season, and it’s only going to get worse as we …
Capitalism and entrepreneurship make the difference in the world. Whether a country is rich or poor depends on both. The evidence is all around us, and the explanations are a click away. An example is the video below. Anthony Bourdain is a fascinating person, a great chef and also world traveller. He has his own …
Excerpts from an Interview with the Daily Bell: Daily Bell: Give us some background on yourself. Where did you grow up? Jeffrey Tucker: My family has generally lived in the Southeast region of Texas since 1830, when an idealistic son of a Congregationalist minister bailed out of his homestead in Massachusetts. He was seeking a …
Politics is a lagging indicator of social-cultural trends. Politics doesn’t lead change; it chases it, incompetently and long after the underlying reality is impossible to deny. This is why it makes no sense to put faith in politics. By the time politics catches up, the rest of the world has moved on. That said, I’ve …
Corn prices are officially through the roof, spiking to record highs. It’s been headed this way through six years of crazy volatility. Now the spike is undeniable. At the same time, crop yields are lower they have been since 1995. Everyone blames the drought, as if the market can’t normally handle a supply change. The …