From the Tongue-in-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books Houston, TX — Police in Houston, Texas, recently charged a 10-year-old girl with aggravated sexual assault. The victim was a 4-year-old boy. The girl had been caught playing doctor with the boy. It is the second such case to be reported in Houston in only a few …

The standard version of how money came to be goes like this: First, there was barter. (A handful of nails for a pint of ale!) Then, along came various forms of money. An evolutionary derby eventually crowned gold and silver as the supreme money. And finally, credit (or debt) was born. This is the apex …

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 …

It is such a kick to read the transcripts from the White House’s health care “war room” in the first days of release. What a meltdown, and you get to watch it all in real-time. I’m not trying to be cruel to the kindly despots who have wrecked so much of what worked in the …

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 …

Stock investors are still acting as though Janet Yellen will be good for the economy… or at least good for stock prices. Gold investors must think so too. But will she be? Yellen has no business or investment experience. Her entire career has been spent in academia and public policy institutions. She has never started …

From the Tongue-In-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books… Washington, D.C. — Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced that her committee will hold a “major review into all intelligence-collection programs.” This surprising declaration followed the revelation, through documents leaked by government whistle-blower Edward Snowden, that the NSA has been listening to …

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, …

Obamacare certainly has made history. It has set the record for the fastest-failing Big Government program in world history. This isn’t only about a website flop; it is about the failure of government to accomplish the aims of Obamacare in general, and in a way that has profoundly touched millions of individual lives. “Train wreck” …

We live in parallel universes. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is said to have a healthy concern about deflation. McDonald’s franchisees, on the other hand, not so much. The chain of Golden Arches fame will give up its Dollar Menu after 11 years, renaming it “The Dollar Menu & More” next month. It turns out …

A handful of reports last week suggested that the Obama administration had moved to delay the health law’s individual mandate — the penalty the law imposes on those who are uninsured. That’s not quite right: Instead, the administration will align the 2014 penalty date, which had been February 15, with the end of Obamacare’s open …

While the world has evolved over the centuries, human emotions have remained the same — happiness, sadness, jealousy, greed, fear. The ruling class and working class are equally afflicted by these emotions. Seeking the easy option is another human frailty that has stood the test of time. It is for these reasons we are destined …

From the Tongue-in-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books… Washington, D.C. — Jeff Incast, a Democratic representative from California, has tabled a bill that would expand current insider trading laws. He said he was “distressed” by the acquittal of Mark Cuban, whom a jury cleared of civil charges of insider trading brought by the Securities and …

A common argument made in favor of government-financed health care is that it is inherently cheaper than a private system. Strangely, however, the people who celebrate the government’s ability to hold down health care spending would be horrified at the same argument applied to other public-sector functions. It’s a seriously inconsistent position held by advocates …

You didn’t want to be the guy chosen to tell Stalin that the wheat crop failed or the production quotas on trucks and cars were not met. Why? Because despots always blame people, not systems. In the same way, you don’t want to be the guy chosen to tell Obama that his health care websites …

The online Internet exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act are up and running. OK, they’re up. Uhh, OK, some of them are sort of up. It has been almost a week since last Tuesday’s initial launch, and there have been more than a few problems. Website crashes, excessive response times and other problems have …

From the Tongue-in-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books… Washington, D.C. — The complex negotiations aimed at bringing a long-term solution to the federal government’s expenditure and debt problem have produced an unconventional proposal. “Although the solution only focuses on a tiny fraction of government expenditures,” declared President Barack Obama, “it is a step in the …

A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck, as the …

I’ve just spent a harrowing weekend reflecting on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the pamphlet that came out in January 1776 and turned the public toward seeking independence from Britain. I say harrowing because the distance between the ideals found in this pamphlet and those of today’s America is so vast as to be nearly unrecognizable. …

There’s plenty of gushing about the Janet Yellen appointment as Federal Reserve Chairman. Yale economist Robert Shiller says she’s “a real mensch.” Greg Mankiw from Harvard says President Obama made a great decision in choosing her. “Reports of Janet Yellen’s forthcoming nomination will be greeted well by market agents,” says David Kotok. “It should be.” …

2013 represents another turning point in the demise of the American Empire. If you view it in economic (rather than ethical or moral) terms, the high water mark of Empire was probably in the late 1990s. But the Internet bubble and bust marked an important turning point. It coincided with the birth of the euro, …

Friday was day four of the U.S. government shutdown. And what does a former government insider have to say about that? Plenty. In fact, while 80,000 “nonessential” federal employees continue to enjoy their paid vacation, I’m working overtime to bring you today’s issue. [Ed. Note: This article was originally published Sunday, Oct. 6.] The shutdown …

From the Tongue-in-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books… Washington, D.C. –– A tragedy is brewing in the United States. Within a decade, the country that has gone from the second freest in the world to the 17th. And the threat is much worse than the federal government’s current 20% shutdown. If Congress does not increase …