As a rule, libertarians incline toward wishful thinking. They constantly pluck little events, statements, and movies from the flow of life and cry out, “Eureka! Libertarianism is on the march!” With some of my friends, this tendency is so marked that I have become amused by its recurrent expression—well, there he goes again! Some...
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The term crony capitalism has appeared frequently in the popular press of late, but rarely has it been used—let alone defined—in the academic literature. Independent Institute Research Fellow Randall G. Holcombe, a frequent contributor to The Beacon, helps remedy this deficiency in an article published in the Spring 2013 issue of The Independent Review. “Crony capitalism,”...
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Among the celebrants at the inaugural balls will be top contributors to the President’s reelection campaign, but their real celebration will be April 15, when they continue to be the beneficiaries of a “tax loophole” Obama pledged to close in 2008—but that remains gaping wide open despite his rhetoric about now making “the rich”...
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Here I go, dating myself again. In the early 1960s, there was an absolutely horrible game show called “Queen for a Day,” in which each week several women would compete for who had the most pitiful life of hardships. At the end of each show, the audience would vote on who would be—literally, crowned—Queen...
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We are very pleased to announce the publication of our very timely, widely acclaimed, and compelling, new book on how to get beyond partisanship and special-interest politics to resolve one of biggest issues facing us today, Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis by our Research Fellow John C. Goodman. Dr. Goodman is the renowned, free-market,...
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I often disagree with Matthew Yglesias, but I found myself cheering when I read parts of his Slate column on President Obama’s State of the Union Speech. The president’s stated wish to protect domestic jobs by hindering trade is, Yglesias writes, “a strikingly retrograde, self-contradictory, and confused agenda of reviving American prosperity through mercantilism.”...
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A story by Matthew Wald in the New York Times on January 9th demonstrates the poverty of governmental attempts to pick “winners” in the realm of green technologies, the wasteful subsidy programs supporting that policy goal and the huge costs for the private sector of being unable to march to Washington’s tune. Among its...
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Senior Fellow Robert Higgs is interviewed here by Thomas Woods on “The Peter Schiff Show.” Dr. Higgs discusses how the federal government prolonged and deepened the Great Depression of the 1930s that lasted until after World War II when such policies were either ended or radically reduced. Moreover, the current attempts at central-government planning...
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Independent Institute Research Director Alexander Tabarrok is interviewed here by Ray Lehmann on the FIRE (Finance, Insurance & Real Estate News) Podcast for the Heartland Institute. The interview discusses many government barriers that exist that block innovation and what policy reforms could be adopted now to restore entrepreneurship and prosperity. Issues addressed include patents...
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Ivan Eland‘s new book, No War for Oil: U.S. Dependency and the Middle East, challenges a long-standing pillar of U.S. foreign policy—the belief that U.S. national and economic security require that American taxpayers fund the military protection of oil-rich foreign lands, especially in the Persian Gulf. According to Eland, senior fellow at the Independent...
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