“But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government.”
— Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837.
President Obama’s proposed FY2012 Federal Budget has come under heavy fire for its modest reach in real reform. With deficits projected to be in the trillions for the foreseeable future, the amount of budget cutting proposed is certainly underwhelming. Lost in the battle over $6 billion cuts offered by the President and the Democrats, and the $61 billion of cuts the Republicans want, is the use of another powerful tool to help get the economy moving – reining in regulation.…
Continue ReadingOn occasion, I have the opportunity to assist Dr. Patrick J. Michaels (Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute) in reviewing the latest scientific research on climate change. When we happen upon findings in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that may not have received the media attention that they deserved, or have been misinterpreted in the popular press, Pat sometimes covers them over at the “Current Wisdom” section of the Cato@Liberty blog site.
His latest posting there highlights research findings that show that extreme weather events during last summer and the previous two winters can be fully explained by natural climate variability—and that “global warming” need not (and should not) be invoked.
This topic—whether or not weather extremes (or at least some portion of them) can be attributed to anthropogenic global warming (or, as Dr.…
Continue ReadingThe broken window…. An elementary fallacy. Anybody, one would think, would be able to avoid it after a few moments’ thought. Yet the broken window fallacy, under a hundred disguises, is the most persistent in the history of economics. It is more rampant now than at any time in the past. It is solemnly reaffirmed every day by great captains of industry, by chambers of commerce, by labor union leaders, by editorial writers and newspaper columnists and radio commentators, by learned statisticians using the most refined techniques, by professors of economics in our best universities. In their various ways they all dilate upon the advantages of destruction.
– Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson, chapter 4.
Henry Hazlitt (1894–1993) was a journalist turned economist and philosopher and overall giant of free-market thought.…
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