Almost 50 years have passed since the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 became law. The act governs how elected officials are supposed to draft and approve a budget every year. Under the law, that process is supposed to go like clockwork.
“Door-to-door mail delivery is about as American as apple pie,” NBC Bay Area reported back in 2013. “With the Postal Service facing billions of dollars in annual losses, that tradition could be virtually phased out by 2022 under a proposal in Congress.”
When Thomas Robert Malthus published his Essay on Population in 1798, explaining that population always tends to grow faster than the resources available to support that population, condemning most people to a level of income barely sufficient to survive, he was describing the history of humankind up to that point.
Venezuela’s opposition has been seriously weakened in the last few months. Part of the reason is that Nicolás Maduro’s brutal dictatorship has survived every attempt to topple it with support from Cuba, Russia, Iran, and to some extent China. But some responsibility lies with the leaders of the opposition themselves, who have devoted an inordinate amount of time to internecine power struggles and, in some cases, engaged in acts of corruption that have tarnished its image.
The year 1776 is certainly a landmark year in history, and one of the reasons why is Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations,” which first appeared in print that year. In 1976, to commemorate the book’s bicentennial, University of Chicago economist and Nobel Prize winner Ronald Coase wrote a pair of essays that discuss two of Smith’s great works—“The Theory of Moral Sentiments” and “The Wealth of Nations”—and their continued importance. This year marks the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth, and Coase’s essays once again make a fitting tribute. Here, I comment especially on Coase’s “Adam Smith’s View of Man,” which focuses on “The Theory of Moral Sentiments.”
A romantic notion of democracy depicts democratic governments as being accountable to their citizens and acting in their citizens’ best interests. Academic models of democratic government depict citizens and voters as having public policy preferences, and candidates and parties adjust their platforms to conform to these preferences.
Perhaps the best compliment to a movie is when viewers buy the book on which the story is based. That’s what happened after I watched True Spirit, a 2023 drama (Netflix) about the history-making sailing circumnavigation of the world by then 16-year old Jessica Watson (Teagan Croft, Titans, The Osiris Child). Watson’s story of individual courage, tenacity, and mental toughness allows this inspiring family drama to punch above its weight.
What could he do if President Biden were to get serious about recovering pandemic relief stolen by fraudsters?
On January 25th, I wrote about the increasing borrowing activity taking place at the Fed’s discount window. I commented that, despite popular perceptions, not all the borrowing at the discount window is driven by emergencies. But I also added that with rapidly rising interest rates, and the money supply contracting for the first time in decades and possibly the quickest that it ever has, the beginning of a liquidity crisis was nevertheless a distinct possibility.
“Our continuing mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world,” the Federal Aviation Administration claims. People who fly, and those who don’t, might wonder about Phillip Washington, Joe Biden’s pick to head the FAA. In a March 1 hearing, Washington faced a series of basic questions, such as:
