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Government-Caused Impoverishment: Why Do We Stand for It?
Growing up in the Cold War, we tended to look at Russia as a nightmare slave society that was utterly and completely foreign to …
The So-Called Private Economy
“The private economy is doing fine.” Those were the words of President Obama that unleashed a torrent of political hysteria. The Romney campaign immediately …
Cryptography for the Rest of Us
Shanghai’s leading code slinger, David Veksler, who is also a good friend and long-time collaborator on all things digital, has come up with something …
Governments and Computers: Dangerous Mix
Many people these days openly express regret about the digital age. I find their complaints vacuous: They say we are losing the art of …
Photography and Its Epic Significance
My link to my family past is a photograph taken in dusty, desolate West Texas, the one in which my grandmother on my father’s …
The Zombie Apocalypse: Economic Implications
The financial pages and popular culture are often strangely aligned. For example, many young people today are consumed with the seeming emergence of a …
Hayekian Moments in Life
I never tire of looking out the windows of airplanes. For all of human history until just about the day before yesterday, no living …
Small Package, Tons of Truth
Economic trends today are a litany of awful: high personal debt, stratospheric government debt, persistent trade deficits, declining living standards, government out of control, …
A Case for Danger
There’s a national park close to my house that has a large lake and all the swimming accoutrements left over from the 1970s. It’s …
How to Think: Lunchtime Lessons
“I just joined the Club!” That’s the whole content of an email I received from a very old friend who is very special to …
Conspiracies and How to Defeat Them
Someone asked me the other day if I believe in conspiracies. Well, sure. Here’s one. It is called the political system. It is nothing …
The Juice that Defied an Empire
What’s great about POM Wonderful? Sure, this pomegranate juice tastes great. POM is one of the few drinks that seems to have the same …
The Warehouse: Beauty and Solemnity
The great recession continues in so many ways but online commerce is booming as never before, increasing in the last quarter of 2011 at …
A Way to Soak the Rich
You might have noticed that lots of people are really down on the so-called 1%. It drives many people, especially politicians, absolutely bonkers that …
Are You the Next Prisoner?
The United States is home to a gigantic socialist sector, larger and with a greater reach than any in the world, and it is …
History of the Club, Part 2
Dreamers and accountants — they say that both types of people are necessary for a great business. One without the other is a dead …
The Non-Crime of Knowing
Let’s say that Rajat Gupta, former director at Goldman Sachs on trial for insider trading, is toss in the slammer for passing on information …
My Government Is Worse than Yours
Now that hysteria over my original Brazil column has died down, let me add some comments and reflections about it and what gave rise …
A Century of Cosmetics: Is the End Near?
The organization Campaign for Safe Cosmetics doesn’t just want you to be able to have new choices about the makeup or other products you …
Five Pillars of Economic Freedom
The great debate between capitalism and socialism suffers from a lack of clarity about definitions. This is why when Walter Block lectured in Brazil …
Brazil and the Spirit of Liberty
My most surprising findings in Brazil, aside from the amazing fruits that I didn’t know existed because the U.S. government doesn’t think I need …
Heat and Light in a TSA Line
Time was tight and people were rushing to catch flights. This particular terminal in Miami was usually fast, everyone knew, but for some reason, …
Government’s Idle Hands: Underwear Bomber 2.0
Government has a serious problem. It’s got nothing worthwhile to do. All the cool things in life come from the private sector, and this …
It’s Fun to Resist the State
Libertarianism is, obviously, an idea whose time has come. Or maybe you don’t like that term. There are plenty of others. My preference is …