The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is pleased to announce the recipient of its first “Blinking Lights” Award: Linda Whetstone of Sussex, England. The award was presented to Whetstone by FEE president Lawrence Reed on May 12, 2014 in London as part of FEE’s Blinking Lights Project that highlights and emphasizes the vital link between personal character and a […]
Patriotism Is Not the Waving of a Flag. Patriotism these days is like Christmas—lots of people caught up in a festive atmosphere replete with lights and spectacles. We hear reminders about “the true meaning” of Christmas—and we may even mutter a few guilt-ridden words to that effect ourselves—but each of us spends more time and […]
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is proud to partner with Young America’s Foundation (YAF) to produce “Clichés of Progressivism,” a series of insightful commentaries covering topics of free enterprise, income inequality, and limited government. Our society is inundated with half-truths and misconceptions about the economy in general and free enterprise in particular. The “Clichés of Progressivism” series […]
Language—even profanity—evolves faster than it can be regulated. I was all ready to write a column about Anthony Trollope, Francis Hodgson Burnett, and women’s property rights, when Brighton, Michigan, decided to start enforcing $200 fines against people who swear in public. This was such a perfect demonstration of the extension of Skwire’s First Law from […]
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is proud to partner with Young America’s Foundation (YAF) to produce “Clichés of Progressivism,” a series of insightful commentaries covering topics of free enterprise, income inequality, and limited government. Our society is inundated with half-truths and misconceptions about the economy in general and free enterprise in particular. The “Clichés of Progressivism” series […]
The debate over raising the legal minimum wage (LMW) to $10 an hour has people on both sides saying things they should know better than to say. For example, a friend recently posted the following meme (which isn’t the worst I’ve seen) on Facebook: One year ago this week, San Jose decided to raise its […]
Connor Boyack has joined forces with illustrator Elijah Stanfield to create a children’s book about Frederic Bastiat’s The Law. It’s called The Tuttle Twins Learn about The Law. The Tuttle Twins—a brother and a sister—are curious about life and the world. Luckily they have a wise older neighbor, Fred, who can drop some wisdom about morality and the role […]
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is proud to partner with Young America’s Foundation (YAF) to produce “Clichés of Progressivism,” a series of insightful commentaries covering topics of free enterprise, income inequality, and limited government. Our society is inundated with half-truths and misconceptions about the economy in general and free enterprise in particular. The “Clichés of Progressivism” series […]
Good Poker Players Have More in Common with Entrepreneurs than with Gamblers. Until recently I was a director and the chairman of the audit committee of one of Bermuda’s banks, but I lived with a guilty secret, almost the equivalent of being an alcoholic or, even worse, a smoker. I played poker regularly and had […]
Drug Prohibition Is Deadly. In perhaps no other public-policy question is the United States more hopelessly in the grip of a conventional wisdom that is utterly and egregiously wrong than drugs. Most Americans, no matter their political affiliation, are adamant supporters of the “war on drugs.” Try suggesting that the war might be stupendous folly […]
Rethinking the science of addiction. How do you justify taking away someone’s agency? The easiest way is to claim they didn’t have it in the first place. For a long time, both popular media and information sources on the subject have depicted drug addicts as zombies incapable of making rational choices. Helpguide.org describes drug addiction as causing […]
The NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers have become relevant for the first time in decades. They came to dominate the news, however, because their long-reviled owner’s stark racism finally handed a smoking gun to somebody. It figures that, just as they got a taste of the on-court success Donald Sterling never seemed all that concerned with […]
When Michael Lewis’s new book Flash Boys came out, the author caused a stir while making the media rounds to promote it. “The market is rigged,” he told 60 Minutes flatly. His comments set off a firestorm of debate as to whether sharp techies and their fast computers are screwing small investors. As titillating as that soundbite was, those […]
Problems with the VA go deeper than recent episodes. The revelation of inefficiency in the VA hospital system has caused strong reactions. Critics of the Obama administration regard this as another scandal, evidence of gross incompetence, and some are calling for measures to fix the VA system. Fatal delays in treatment in VA hospitals are […]
This TGIF originally ran July 7, 2006. The freedom philosophy can be boiled down to two phrases: for equality, against privilege. Intuitively, this should sound uncontroversial. We just finished celebrating the Fourth of July, which commemorates the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson’s elegant statement of the freedom philosophy proclaims: We hold these truths to be […]