Independent Institute Research Director Alex Tabarrok is interviewed by Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics Radio in “To Catch a Fugitive,” on the enormous advantages of private bounty hunting over government police enforcement of bail jumping. Download audio file (20:14 minutes) Here also is a transcript of the interview. Please also see the following books from...
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Emblematic of the state of this nation’s government-provided education, a public elementary school in New Jersey renamed for President Obama just last year, is now closing due to low academic achievement and declining enrollment. In choosing to concentrate on form—renaming the school for the current President—over function—directing efforts into actually improving the education the...
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Andrew Klaven at PJTV presents here an insightful video analysis of government-employee unions. For further information, please see the following: Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America, by Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway “The New, New Left: How American Politics Works Today, by Steven Malanga,” reviewed by Gary Jason (The...
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In a recent piece in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Ralph Nader bemoans President Obama’s failure to use his position and standing to advance the non-profit sector: Yet, though he rhetorically urges more volunteerism, as all presidents do, in his travels around the country, he stops most often at factories and campaign fund-raising events patronized...
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With President Obama’s new proposal for a massive, new federal plan for $53 billion in pork subsidies for high-speed rail, Independent Institute Research Fellow Gabriel Roth recently participated in a forum on public transit sponsored by the Mobility Choice Coalition. At the event, Bill Lind, director of the Center for Public Transportation affiliated with...
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Hard on the heels of his speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in which he jawboned the owners of private businesses to increase hiring in return for federal tax breaks and other subsidies, President Obama has included in his budget request for fiscal year 2012 a proposal to make a $8 billion down...
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After the shooting that killed six and wounded at least a dozen people, including Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords, I blogged about the accusations that extreme political rhetoric was to blame for the shooting. In passing I also remarked “...that news accounts are calling Loughner a ‘suspect’ in the shooting, when after the shooting people took...
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Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central hilariously skewers the hypocrisy, authoritarianism, and foolishness of “progressive” San Francisco’s Nanny-State ban of Happy Meals at McDonald’s restaurants in the city. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c The Daily Show on Facebook HT: Carl Haberberger

In a new article in the London Guardian, “$2 Trillion Debt Crisis Threatens to Bring Down 100 U.S. Cities,” Elena Moya reports that “Overdrawn American cities could face financial collapse in 2011, defaulting on hundreds of billions of dollars of borrowings and derailing the U.S. economic recovery. Nor are European cities safe—Florence, Barcelona, Madrid,...
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As just another example that the Nanny State is alive and flourishing in San Francisco—the city that delights in calling itself a bastion of “freedom”—here are a few of the rules if you wish to hold your child’s birthday party in one of its public parks: Don’t bring Mylar balloons. Don’t attach non-Mylar balloons...
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