In the final segment of my appearance on Capital Account last week, the hosts mentioned that plenty of Americans don’t know the names of the president or vice president. Is that awful? Most people think so. But I said in response that this is not a terribly bad thing. It might be evidence that people …

Why do people love competition so much in the field and in the pool, but fear and hate it in the business world? The analogies between Olympic fare and life in a free market are very close, closer than people realize. yet we celebrate competition in one sector and try to ban the other. Consider …

Before the third of the Batman trilogy hit theaters, I had heard that The Dark Knight Rises was a film without hope, with a long and dreary narrative that never loosens its grip. It leaves the viewer without a sense of answers. I saw it and left confused. It saw it again, and left confused …

In my town this week, two tribes shouted each other down, each claiming that the other is destroying the country. At issue: whether to eat or not eat a chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A. Yes, this is what democracy has been reduced to. People have so little effective control over their own lives and their political …

Is a blowout bust coming for high-flying Internet stocks? There was the disappointing Facebook IPO, but many people wrote that off as due to managerial errors at the Nasdaq. But those errors must have persisted, because the stock has been down nearly 40%, reaching a low point. Every talking head is muttering about the problem …

After Sept. 11, the American system of government became crazy obsessed with security. The implementation has not only been brutal and contrary to human liberty; it has completely lacked creativity. Instead of real security, we get what’s called “security theater,” and at the expense of the customer, who feels the brunt of all the new …

In today’s political climate, the more implausible the claim, the more likely it is to stick. One that seems to be sticking now is that government today is small by historical standards and constantly shrinking. Run that one by the man on the street — looted by the tax man, harassed by police, hounded by …

While attending the Agora Financial Symposium in Vancouver, I became aware that Americans enjoy some rights that Canadians do not: among them, the limited ability to carry weapons. Even private security guards seem unable to be armed in Canada.This does not make me feel safer. Quite the reverse. Private people who carry guns make me …

If they had listened to Mises in 1927, the world might have been saved. There would have been no Holocaust, Gulag, bombing of civilians, prolonged Depression and vast human suffering. That was then. What can we do now? We can revisit his great work Liberalism, drink deeply from its wisdom and apply it in our …

Real economic growth has slowed to stall, even according to the official data. What will the central bank do now? Ben Bernanke says,”the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee] made clear at its June meeting that it is prepared to take further actions as appropriate to promote a stronger economic recovery and sustained improvement in labor …

Vancouver is a wonderful place, a clean metropolitan city featuring both breathtaking scenery and fascinating diversity. The place is no longer cheap, a lesson for Americans in dollar degradation. Figuring I needed a few loonies for my stay and for paying for the cab ride to the Fairmont, I handed a C-note to the foreign …

I’m here in Vancouver for Agora’s Financial Symposium, where there will be plenty of discussion of booms, busts and stagnation. Watching BNN this morning, Canada’s version of tout TV, a message crawled along the bottom of the screen: “RBC: Toronto, not in a condo bubble.” Fears of a condo bubble in Canada’s biggest housing market …

Even in this seemingly permanent recession, government is intensifying its regulation, taxation and harassment of regular business people. Business pages are filling up with pleas to government from real-life entrepreneurs. All these people are saying is give freedom a chance. An example is Seth Gordon, the co-founder and “TeaEO” of Honest Tea, which makes fabulous …

In The Dark Knight Rises, a cruel strongman rallies the people of Gotham against the corruption of the elites, instituting a violent dictatorship in the name of a people’s liberation. What’s troubling for the viewer is that the strongman is right about the corruption. In this case, and as usual, the fix is worse than …

There were plenty of big names speaking at FreedomFest in Las Vegas last week. There were TV talking heads like Steve Forbes and Andrew Napolitano. Famous entrepreneurs like John Mackay came. Tea Party star Rand Paul attracted vast attention. But it was an unassuming woman, a brilliant author who rarely leaves her rural home in …

I became lost the other day, wandering around in Mon Ami Gabi, an upscale French restaurant situated within Las Vegas’ Paris Hotel. Standing somewhere between the outdoor patio and the bar that opens to the casino, I began to turn around in circles, looking in sheer awe of the size of the seated crowd, the …

In his famous “you didn’t build it” speech, President Obama cited the Internet, fire departments, the GI Bill, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hoover Dam as examples of government action that helps business owners. Each needs addressing, but let’s start with the Hoover Dam. The president is riffing off of Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC commercial …

People can’t get enough of predictions. There is that basic human desire to know the future and capitalize on it. People especially like hearing predictions that confirm their view of the world. Hearing prognostications that match up with your own makes you feel smart. And in turn, you view the predictor as smart for confirming …

From what I can tell, most of what people believe about politics has nothing to do with reality. For example, remember when President Obama took office and hordes of dupes swooned in maniacal frenzy about the utopia he was going to usher in? It was astonishing that so many people imagined that one man’s hand …

People tell me that I get overly worked up about small government regulations. But small matters. The building of civilization is revealed in small steps, tiny, bit-by-bit improvements in the things we have and do. In the same way, seemingly small government regulations can cause a reversal of the magnificent world that enterprise has built. …

Where would the European economy be today without Germany? Compared with all the other states in the European Union, Germany is the viable cash cow for the rest to milk, and that’s only because of the economic reforms that took place before the Great Recession hit. It was the Social Democrats, led by Gerhard Schroder …

Christine Lagarde, the head fixer at the International Monetary Fund, says U.S. policymakers need to be more aggressive in dispensing medication to boost America’s punk recovery. Washington bureaucrats, she believes, have all the fiscal and monetary tools they need to get the job done. Ben Bernanke’s printing press is collecting dust, she thinks, and legions …

One of the great pleasures of releasing an ebook every week is this: I face the pressure to edit, read, and digest books at a regular pace, rain or shine. I prepare videos and articles on them and send announcements, which means that I must know the material well. The demands can be intense but …

Isabel Paterson’s The God of the Machine (this week’s Club release) was one of four magisterial libertarian works to be published in the dark days of 1943. Also released that year were Albert Jay Nock’s Memoirs of a Superfluous Man; Rose Wilder Lane’s The Discovery of Freedom; and, by far the most famous, Ayn Rand’s …