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Detroit, Demographics and Detonation
Detroit’s fate is best summed up by the phrase “Demographics is destiny.” Take a look at the following chart on Detroit’s population growth since …
Why the White House Is Panicking About Obamacare
Actors. Actresses. NFL football players. Baseball players. Librarians. Mayors. City councilmen. Members of AARP. The Obama administration is looking far and wide, leaving no …
How Medical Innovation Redefines Our World
On a Sunday afternoon swim, a 6-year-old boy was bugging me in a sweet sort of way. He rode up and down the handrail …
So Where’s the Hyperinflation Already?
The Federal Reserve has grown the monetary base from $827 billion to $3.1 trillion in five years. At the same time banks have stuck …
Don’t Be a Casualty of War
Jim Rickards lit up the Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver telling the crowd the price of gold will soar north of $7,000 per …
Is Bitcoin Real or Not?
A frightening story this week in The New Yorker tells of a Texas couple that headed toward the Texas-Louisiana border to buy a used …
How to Use Public Health to Control Everything
From antiquity to the Middle Ages, public health meant two things: sanitation (mainly clean water supply and sewage disposal) and protection against epidemics. On …
The Claptrap Behind the Minimum Wage Debate
New York seems to have more than its fair share of knuckleheads. Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman are both stalwart columnists in The New …
The Triumph of Scrooge McDuck
Government can control many things, but it can’t control our minds and, therefore, our economic decisions. This has been a major source of frustration …
The Economy That Got Away
In 1985, Irwin Schiff wrote in what has become a classic book, How an Economy Grows and Why It Doesn’t, a pictorial introduction to basic economics. Now his sons are taking up where he left off.
Thank You, Russia?
Edward Snowden is in big trouble for revealing that our government is doing to its own citizens what the U.S. once accused Russia of doing to its citizens. In what is really a bizarre turn of events, Russia has become a safe haven for an American whistle-blower.
A Cure for Obamacare: From Canada With Love
A recent study on Canadian health care has been released late last year. In it, the authors examine the deleterious effects of socialized medicine on patient wait times and the delivery of care.
“Hurry up and Die”
Japan’s “universal” health care system, like all such systems the world over, is in trouble, with costs rising and the population aging. Nearly 25% …
How the Internet Saved Civilization
I’ve just completed a heavy schedule of talks at the Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver. All my talks centered on information economics, Web …
Is the Gold Price Set for an Explosive Rebound?
In recent months, the price of gold has tumbled. Along the way, lower gold prices have undermined the share price of many mining plays. …
Living Without Boom and Bust
The stock market hovers around all-time highs, and right on cue, individual investors are starting to get back into stocks. They are tired of …
The Dark Side of Technology
“One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will …
The Hustlers of the U.S. Health Care System
Every time you buy a drug at a pharmacy — be it by prescription or over the counter — there’s a middleman that makes …
The Making of a Modern Debt Slave
In the ancient world, when people got themselves into debt, they were often forced to sell their daughters into prostitution and their sons into …
The Joys of Living
“What are you complaining about all the time?” people sometimes ask me. “I’m just about as free as I want to be.” Here’s the …
How a Pacifist Accidentally Infused the FBI with Cash
Back in 1972, when I was a 10-year-old technology and news geek in Chicagoland, a particular story grabbed my attention. Someone had planted time …
The Political Class and the Counteroffensive
That Edward Snowden has put the whole political, corporate, and governing class in a bind. With his revelations that a heretofore obscure agency has …
Gun Control Is Violence
Mohandas Gandhi, the greatest pacifist of the 20th century, is widely quoted as having said, “Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in …
Five Most Absurd Ways Governments Will Promote Obamacare
Like it or not, the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare, for short — is coming. Enrollment in state exchanges, online marketplaces for purchasing health …