Daily Archives: October 28, 2011

America’s free fall in economic freedom

Written on October 28, 2011 at 5:28 pm, by

How did Canada get to be economically freer than the United States, at least according to two credible measures? That’s right, both the Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute place the United States in that position, falling from the world’s top ten freest nations (even lower than the United Kingdom in one!). According the FraserContinue Reading

I tried to occupy Raleigh and all I got was this lousy rap sheet

Written on October 28, 2011 at 2:40 pm, by

Here is an array of photos from the arrests at yesterday’s Occupy Raleigh rally near the Capitol grounds. Photos by Don Carrington. Click through for larger images.

Poll Shows PPACA Support at All Time Low

Written on October 28, 2011 at 11:48 am, by

For the first time in a Kaiser Family Foundation poll an equal number of people believe the President’s health reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), will and won’t make the country better off. Public support sunk to an all-time low in October of 2011 the new poll finds. According to Kaiser,Continue Reading

Wake County school assignment website

Written on October 28, 2011 at 11:30 am, by

Next year, the Stoops family will send two boys to a Wake County elementary school.  (This is fair warning, elementary teachers.)  So, I checked out the Wake County Student Assignment Plan website to get a list of our options.  My address was the only information required. From Node 4750 in southern Wake County, we wereContinue Reading

The EU’s financial mess, and our own

Written on October 28, 2011 at 10:37 am, by

AEI’s Peter Wallison draws the comparison here. As he writes, the parallels are clear for anyone who wants to look. The trouble, of course, is that all our admirers of big government insist that the blame must be put on “capitalism” and “greed.” They turn a blind eye to the real culprit.

Richard Epstein on income inequality

Written on October 28, 2011 at 9:23 am, by

I just love it when liberals try to spar with Richard Epstein (on any topic) because he always mauls their arguments with logic and sound counter-arguments, as you’ll see here.

Father Robert Sirico on the Vatican’s glimmering of understanding

Written on October 28, 2011 at 8:33 am, by

Yesterday’s WSJ featured an excellent piece by Father Robert Sirico (a Catholic priest who has learned more about economics on his own than most econ professors know) on a recent Vatican document which shows a glimmering of understanding about fiat money and the manipulation thereof by politicians. While the document shows a glimmering of understanding,Continue Reading

Subsidizing recklessness, your tax dollars at work

Written on October 28, 2011 at 7:49 am, by

Russ Roberts on the Occupy Wall Street crowd in Foreign Affairs. The economist Milton Friedman liked to point out that capitalism is a profit-and-loss system. Profits encourage risk-taking. Losses encourage prudence, which is just as important. Over the last 25 years, however, government policy has been laissez-faire when it comes to profits, and socialist whenContinue Reading