Author's posts
Mar 06
Government again moves to require financial “advice” columnists to be government-licensed
Governments worldwide constantly seek to require all workers to be government-approved and government-licensed. In the U.S., many occupations that poor people could enter freely in the past have been transformed into government-licensed occupations. Poor people must now go through expensive government “training” and approval processes just to work as hairdressers, manicurists, auctioneers, teachers or interior …
Mar 05
Turkish Government Seizes Newspaper Offices
Every government that ever existed sought the same powers: ownership of all property, control of all resources, and control of all speech and thought. Governments invariably imprison and kill those who dissent — — frequently spreading messages that the government is at risk of terrorism or violent attack by critical speakers. Now the government of …
Mar 02
Obamacare Exchanges are Collapsing
Virtually every major state Obamacare “exchange” is collapsing due to low profits for insurers and high premiums for enrollees. In North Carolina, Blue Cross and Blue Shield offers Obamacare plans to all of the state’s 100 counties. In the first year alone, five percent of their ACA customers consumed $830 million in health care costs; …
Mar 02
Breaking: the Global Warming “Pause” May have Ended
1998 was a warm year. No year has matched it since, at least according to satellite data sets. Now, after January’s data have been calculated, it appears that the 18-year,-8-month pause in global warming may have ended. The satellite data sets appear to be consistent. January 2016 may be warmer than January 1998. See here.
Mar 02
“Conservatives” advocate more regulation on abortion
Here is a great column by the gifted libertarian writer Jacob Sullum. Sullum nails the hypocritical approach of so-called conservatives regarding abortion. People who call themselves conservatives are generally knowledgeable about the true effects of regulation. Regulation almost never accomplishes its stated goals; rather, it makes things more expensive and of lower quality. Regulations supposedly …
Mar 02
Bob Barr: the government is actually demanding that Apple invent a way to defeat its devices’ encryption safeguards
Good essay by former congressman and former Libertarian Party candidate for president Bob Barr, regarding the current fight between Apple and the U.S. government: the government is for the first time demanding that a company actually invent a way to defeat the very encryption safeguards it builds into the devices it sells.
Mar 02
More Campus Censorship at California State University
During the 1960s, American-Nazi-Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell often spoke at colleges and universities. Rockwell was hated and despised, and the college audiences occasionally erupted in loud booing; but college administrators reluctantly allowed the spectacles. They submitted to an understanding that public colleges were subject to the First Amendment and could not discriminate or engage …
Mar 01
Another dubious study claims humans are destroying the earth
Even more from the ‘false, but peer-reviewed’ category. The journal Nature recently published a study purporting to show that humans may have unleashed the sixth known mass extinction in Earth’s history. The study lays the blame for this alleged mass extinction on a variety of manmade causes: habitation loss, over-hunting, over-fishing, the spread of germs …
Feb 28
The U.S. has now gone 10 consecutive years in which GDP growth never rose above 3 percent
China, India and other countries have seen their annual GDP numbers grow by 6 to 8 to 10 percent annually. Much of the world has embraced increasing freedom, commerce and capitalism. Life expectancies have grown, and people are living healthier and happier all over the world. But not in the United States. A period of …
Feb 26
Oregon’s “Cover Oregon” Health Care Program Collapses after Losing Millions
Cover Oregon was a government “health insurance marketplace” that the state set up pursuant to Obamacare. The program initially cost $300 million to set up. About 170,000 people tried to sign up for Cover Oregon before it folded.