Our grandparents believed in the value of thrift, but many of their grandchildren don’t. That’s because cultural and economic values have changed dramatically over the last generations as political and media elites have convinced many Americans that saving is passe. So today, under the influence of Keynesian economists who champion government spending and high levels …
So Janet Yellen’s first hearing took place a few nights ago. It was fairly boring. She’s expected to sail through and become the next chairperson of the Federal Reserve. Given that the last few years of extraordinary monetary policy have achieved a miserable recovery, what’s she going to do differently? Nothing. Just more of the …
Any married couple that earns more than 400% of the federal poverty level — that is $62,040 — or a family of two earns too much for subsidies under Obamacare. But if that same couple lived together unmarried, they could earn up to $45,960 each — $91,920 total — and still be eligible for subsidies through the exchanges in New York state.
The president assures us he is not responsible for the wave of health insurance policy cancellations. The insurance companies are. OK, so where is the other side?
The saying goes that things have to get worse before they get better. But with Obamacare, things just keep getting worse — and then they get worse still. In private, even many critics of the law are at least a bit surprised by how poorly the rollout has gone. The question that many are asking …
Though the rollout of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges has dismayed even the law’s supporters, the problem the ACA is designed to address is real enough: Millions of Americans, even those with insurance, lack access to adequate health care. In a voluntary society, civil-sector groups would step up to provide social services, like health …
Americans are still trying to get a handle on the full extent of the government’s domestic spying activities, including the recent revelation that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting and storing the email address books of ordinary Americans using online messaging services. Many users of such services are looking to tech executives for …
A few months ago at a demonstration against the president of Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, a Canadian citizen made the following claim: “We don’t have guns, we are not Americans, we are civilized.” A few days before, in early July, a train of the company had run away and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing …
Can we at least agree that the American people deserve the truth? That governing ourselves requires getting accurate information from the people we elect? That their function is to represent us? And that they have no right to lie or mislead? Opposing mendacity ought to be a no-brainer. What I see instead is a mainstreaming …
Imagine that everyone in your community is issued a credit card with the same account number. At the end of every month, the bill is totaled and divided equally among you. Suppose that during the first month, you choose not to use the credit card, yet you receive a bill for $100. The next month, …