Jun 21
Financial Times recently reviewed the economic problems facing America’s lower-class males. Males of prime working age have abandoned work, as regulation and the criminal justice system have taken their tolls. See here. “Between 6 and 7 per cent of the prime-age male population was in prison at some point during their lives in 2008.”
May 22
Government masquerades as a protector and defender of the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Government’s worldwide are the greatest promoter of impoverishment, starvation and suffering for the world’s poorest. Mostly governments keep people poor by imposing legal barriers and licensing schemes upon poor people–which prevent poor people from launching rewarding careers. During …
May 05
The poor in today’s America are getting poorer all the time, relative to the rest of American society. The reason is government regulation, which keeps poor people from being free to pursue rewarding careers or to otherwise be productive. Many states require licenses for people to enter even the simplest professions such as barbering, managing …
May 01
The government’s 2016 projections for Obamacare enrollees were off by 24 million people. The public has balked at sky-high premiums and deductables, while insurers have lost BILLIONS. Now the insurance companies are saying they will need to spike premiums in 2017. For example, in Virginia, a state that reports early, nine insurers returning to the …
Apr 26
President Obama frequently lashes out at U.S. companies that seek to escape America’s high tax burden by headquartering overseas. Last week, after the release of the “Panama Papers” which show that world leaders who impose high taxes on their own subjects are hiding their own riches in off-shore low- (or no-) tax accounts, Obama lashed …
Apr 25
Trusters of expansive, intrusive government have spread the notion that the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s were struggles for more government. In fact, the Civil Rights movement was a guerilla, libertarian victory over socialism and government supremacy. When Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white bus passenger …
Apr 21
Trusters of government have been pouring on regulations since the 1990s. Here is a Washington Post story about the decline of American entrepreneurship. Fewer business are launching. More are leaving, liquidating or dying. The average age of businesses is getting older (as young people stop starting businesses due to onerous licensing requirements). Thus, the efforts …
Apr 18
More than 100 peer-reviewed studies have found that increasing (or establishing) a minimum wage law causes higher unemployment. Unemployment, in turn, is correlated with a number of measures of social ills, including increased suicide rates, rates of first admission to mental health facilities and rates of alcoholism. Now, just weeks after the State of California …
Apr 18
Witness modern Venezuela. A generation ago, Venezuelan voters cheered when socialist Hugo Chavez was elected president. Chavez’s socialist government took over the mining, industrial, energy, and shipping industries. Chavez imposed censorship on the media, jailing critics. Wealthy households were raided and had their belongings taken by the state. Companies were banned or fled. Chavez provided …
Apr 08
Government regulations aimed at helping the poor almost always harm the poor. After 6 years, the Affordable Care Act is increasingly harming the poorest Americans. In March, the Obama administration celebrated the Affordable Care Act’s anniversary by proudly declaring, “Thanks to this law, 20 million more Americans now know the security of having health insurance, …
