The first chapter of Francis Fukuyama’s new book, Liberalism and its Discontents, is titled, “What is Classical Liberalism?” While he never explicitly answers the question, he does list some liberal principles: respect for the individual and individual autonomy, protection of property rights and of the right to transact with others, and inclusion of individuals in the political process via the right to vote.

As summer approaches and midterm elections loom, it’s hard to imagine a worse climate for President Joe Biden.

The average price of gasoline is creeping toward $5 a gallon, inflation is at 40-year highs, and stocks are red, with the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq down 9.8 percent, 14 percent, and 23 percent year-to-date, respectively.

A moment existed in the Jurassic World franchise when businessmen were human, like the rest of us. That moment has passed.

Unlike the 2018 movie Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (see my Independent Institute review here), and even the first movie in the trilogy, Jurassic World: Dominion‘s filmmakers threw away any pretense of nuance or layering. Instead, they crafted a heavy-handed, apocalyptic tale of man-made environmental disaster, all in the pursuit of profit and world domination.

While President Biden’s fiscal policies get much of the credit for contributing to today’s high inflation, there’s more to the story. The Biden-Harris administration’s regulatory agenda adds to the costs of that inflation.

If Jeanine Añez, the former president of Bolivia, were a woman of the left, she would be a “cause célèbre” by now. Because she is a Christian and a conservative (with some of whose ideas, I hasten to add, I do not agree), her recent ten-year prison sentence at the hands of an increasingly dictatorial government led by Luis Arce—a stooge of former president Evo Morales, a close ally of Cuba and Nicaragua—has given rise to less international furor than it should. She is a political prisoner and the case against her (she is accused of having grabbed power illegally in 2019) is grotesque by any standards.

“Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden, tested positive for COVID-19 on a rapid antigen test,” the National Institutes of Health announced Wednesday. Embattled Americans have reason to be puzzled. 

United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001) was the first major antitrust case of the digital age. At its conclusion, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson declared that Microsoft had violated the Sherman Act by monopolizing the U.S. market for “Intel-compatible” computer operating systems (see, e.g., here).

According to the Sacramento Bee, California state prison psychiatrists earn about $300,000 a year, but apparently, that’s not enough. Their union wants a 15 percent across-the-board hike for the fiscal year starting July 1. That gives taxpayers plenty to ponder.

Americans are experiencing the worst inflation they have in over four decades. The Federal Reserve is gearing up for a series of big interest rate hikes to try to slow it.

Those rate hikes mean big trouble lies ahead for the fiscal health of the U.S. government. Through June 9, 2022, Uncle Sam has racked up nearly $30.4 trillion worth of debt. That’s over $230,278 of national debt for each of the U.S. estimated 132 million households.

Fellow blogger Craig Eyermann did a good job of explaining that the Social Security trust fund is projected to run out of money by 2035. The result, the Social Security Administration trustees say, is that either payroll taxes will have to be raised or benefits will have to be cut.