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Safeway, Uber, and the Economic Lessons of Winter Blizzards
The east coast and parts of the southern U.S. were to varying degrees paralyzed by blizzards a few weeks ago. The snow as expected …
Economic Doom on Ice
The financial world is plodding along like a drunken sailor avoiding debt collectors by keeping no cash in his wallet. It’s not the kind …
When They Come For Your Guns, You Will Turn Them Over
“When they come for my gun, they will have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands,” is a common refrain I often …
The Way We Help People Does Not Help People
The highest form of charity, argued the 12th-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, is when the help given enables the receiver to become self-sufficient. But our …
Mass Surveillance Proves Pointless
In times of war and national emergency, it’s sometimes necessary to sacrifice civil liberties to secure vital gains in public safety. In those cases, …
5 Alternative Cryptocurrencies That Could One Day Rival Bitcoin
Last year was quite the year for Bitcoin. We’ve seen exponential growth in Bitcoin’s exchange rate and extensive coverage in the media. Another phenomenon …
The Housing Crisis That Refuses to Heal
President Obama crowed in his State of the Union speech about the economy, even mentioning “a rebounding housing market.” Maybe he was referring to …
$205 Trillion in Unfunded Liabilities
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is acting in a bipartisan way to cover up the biggest single threat to the bipartisan political alliance that …
Tragedy of the Health Care Commons
Recent difficulties with implementing the Affordable Care Act have increased opposition to the program. A majority of Americans now oppose it. Problems with the …
Don’t Forget Financial Privacy
Amidst all the revelations about how the American people, many of whom are absolutely convinced they live in a free society, have their telephone …
Why Are Bitcoiners Going to Jail for Money Laundering While Big Banks Walk?
Image: Shutterstock BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem, along with alleged co-conspirator Robert Faiella, was arrested by federal authorities last week for allegedly laundering more than …
How Obamacare Creates Ethical Conflicts for Physicians
Do you trust your doctor? Most patients assume their doctor is working in their best medical interests whenever he or she orders a diagnostic …
Cybersecurity: The NSA’s Big Budget Action Movie
The exercise had an awesome name, inspired by the movies: “Quantum Dawn 2.” On July 18, scads of U.S. banks, stock exchanges and government …
The New American Elite
The faces of the Detroit bankruptcy are the thousands of pensioners whose promised benefits are suddenly part of the restructure negotiation. When Motown filed …
Obamacare: A Welcome Mat for IRS Horrors
So you’ve maneuvered the Obamacare website, plugged in your top-secret information and found out how much you are forced to pay to avoid a …
How Many Fish?
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” …
Debt Ceiling Déjà Vu: The Government That Cried Wolf
On Feb. 7 the United States will once again reach its statutory debt limit, meaning it cannot legally borrow any more money. Since the …
Cheap Wine and Expensive Health Care
The New York Times published an interminable article on health care recently. Plenty of facts — how scrupulous are these journalists! — but the …
The NSA Speech: Obama Accepts the Logic of Staying Terrorized
For critics of the surveillance state, it is tempting to see President Obama’s speech a few weeks ago as a partial victory: Prompted by …
The Largest Company in History
The Largest Company in History: “The United States Corporation of Government (USCOG)” I follow global social and commercial networks, looking for entrepreneurial opportunities. Innovation …
A One-Way Ticket to Central Planning
We’d like to give the banks in Australia some credit. They’ve finally gone and done it. They have caught up with 1960s technology. They’ve …
Call the SEC!
We put in a good-citizen call to the SEC the other day. “There’s a massive scheme to manipulate stock prices,” we told the friendly …
The Great Health Care CON
Dr. William C. Padgett is a retired optometrist who has been trying to bring an elderly care facility to Beaufort County, North Carolina, for …
The Corruption of Power
We’ve pointed out in the past that President Obama’s views on the surveillance state shifted completely from when he was Senator to when he …