Lysander Spooner University will be offering a one-day course on “How Government Harms the Poor” at the Manhattan, Montana Potato Festival on Saturday, August 15. Tuition is free; the exam is $5. Find us at the Libertarian Party table at the Festival. Every government measure aimed at helping the poor actually harms the poor. Consider …
Category: Unfree Markets
Aug 03
Today’s college students pay more than 1,000 percent more for textbooks than their predecessors, almost entirely due to the Government’s student loan program
Today’s incoming college freshmen will be paying 1,041 percent more for their textbooks than their peers did in 1977. This is while the actual value and costs of books have been declining for years. The free market has been making books cheaper; yet college students are forced to pay ever-more. Why? Because of the Federal …
Jul 31
Government scrambles to protect its vast stupid regulatory schemes from the threat of Uber
To operate a taxi cab business is to navigate through one of the most over-regulated industries in the world. But the actual act of cab-driving is relatively simple, and poor people of limited means should be able to participate and enter the market. This disconnect is caused by decades of stupid overregulation of the taxi …
Jul 30
U.S. Corporate Taxes are The Highest on Earth
Former director of the Congressional Budget Office Douglas Holtz-Eakin recently spoke before an audience in Washington, D.C.. The event was covered by the Washington Examiner. See here. The U.S. has the world’s highest corporate tax rate: 39.1 percent at the top margin. This is almost 14 percentage points higher than a global average. America’s high …
Jul 26
It Appears that Crime and Traffic Fatalities Have Been Going Down Since Washington State Legalized Marijuana
When the State of Washington legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, government-trusters claimed the move would cause a spike in crime and traffic crashes. But thus far, the evidence appears to show that Washington has experienced a continuing decline in overall crime and a decrease in traffic fatalities. A discussion by Professor Mark Thornton is here.
Jul 13
The U.S. is now among the highest-taxing nations.
The United States, once the world’s flagship of capitalism, low regulation and free markets, has entered the category of a high-taxing society. Here is a website that generally provides the average tax rates of the world’s countries. Notice that the U.S. is now taxing its citizens at rates above the North American average, the Western …
Jul 05
Obamacare Causing 20- to 50-Percent Annual Insurance Rate Increases.
If Americans only had the courage to do nothing, and unleash the power of capitalism on health care, prices would come quickly down so that the poorest consumers could afford quality health care. Hobos, bums and vagabonds could afford quality health care if the government got out of it. Just look at the telecommunications industry …
Jun 28
Greek society has been destroyed by welfare and government spending.
Today, June 28, 2015: Greek and European central bankers have declared an incredible SIX-DAY CLOSURE of Greece’s banks. Greece has been bankrupted by years of welfare spending, punishment of savers and entrepreneurs, and overregulation. Now the once-proud-but-now-bankrupt nation will experience the final wages of socialism and extravagant social spending: massive poverty, unemployment, debt and perpetual …
Jun 14
It Has Gone Underreported that the IRS Threatened North Carolina Businessman Lyndon McLellan to Keep Him Silent.
It has been widely reported that in March 2015, the IRS seized $107,000 from North Carolina businessman Lyndon McLellan’s bank account because he had made cash deposits in “wrong” amounts. The IRS claimed that McLellan was “structuring” cash deposits under $10,000 to avoid being identified or suspected of money laundering, drug activity, or whatever. In …
Jun 07
Economist points out the uncomfortably close relationship between high taxes and slavery
Most people, if candid, would admit that a 100 percent tax rate would be akin to slavery by definition. What about a 90 percent tax rate? How about a 75 percent tax rate? Would that mean that the taxpayer is under a state of 75 percent slavery? The analogy is not perfect. (Slavery, after all …
