Peter Wallison on Dodd-Frank The question is why—why did this act have such a dramatic effect on the U.S. economy, essentially stifling the modest recovery that had begun almost a year earlier? The most likely explanation is uncertainty. The Dodd-Frank Act was such a comprehensive piece of legislation—and required so many new regulations before...
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When America’s first peacetime draft began on Registration Day, June 5, 1917, the Wilson administration treated it as a patriotic holiday. Secretary of War Newton Baker wrote to Wilson that he would “make the day of registration a festival and patriotic occasion.” The new conscripts who had “volunteered in mass,” to use Wilson’s Orwellian...
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Recently my fellow blogger Robert Higgs put up a post on The Beacon with this title, and I am following up with a post of the same name, after my attendance at the annual meeting of the Association for Heterodox Economics (AHE) last week. The AHE is an organization of academic economists from throughout...
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In the continuing battle between Malthusians who view humans as “useless eaters” whose populations must be centrally controlled, and those of us who see creatures uniquely endowed with brains and talent, Chinese scholars have fired what one hopes is the opening salvo to bring an end to China’s brutal and repressive practice of forced...
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This video making the rounds features the wonderful Andy Griffith, who sadly passed away this week, in character explaining the importance of due process to Opie. He reveals a profound reverence the principles of Fourth Amendment. More precisely, he is abiding by the principles of the exclusionary rule declaring that improperly obtained evidence is “poisoned...
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If you were setting out to organize a crusade to “restore the American Republic” or some such, you would need to know what sort of people you are trying to enlist in your movement. I have drawn up two short lists to assist you. Fourteen things in which many Americans have an interest: shirking...
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I had a weird dream the other day. Immigration, which is in a downward spiral in the U.S., continues to fall dramatically. At a certain point the debate shifts to the desperate need to attract foreigners. Eventually, headlines such as “a million immigrant visas to be granted on a first come, first serve basis...
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There has been all sorts of speculation on the web about whether or when Chief Justice Roberts switched his vote to join the liberals in upholding the mandate. Jan Crawford of Face the Nation has a good article on the switch based on some insider sources. It does seem to indicate that Roberts cared about...
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The elevated freeway that collapsed during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in Oakland had long been known to be non-seismically-sound. Engineering students at nearby University of California, Berkeley were directed to the structure as a case-study in negative harmonics, and we who drove on it regularly were well familiar with the almost seasickening wavy...
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