September 17, 2018

The cure for homelessness

fromMises: One of most fascinating aspects of progressives is the blindness they display to the adverse consequences of their very own government programs.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market         The Welfare State: Promoting Dependence

VIDEO: Charles Murray - Regulation Nation: A Strategy to Fight Back

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Charles Murray puts forward a strategy to confront regulatory state tyranny.
Regulation Nation

Congress just passed a $150 billion spending package without any consideration for looming deficit

fromReason: Just days after the latest CBO projections showed the deficit getting worse, Congress signs off on another bi-partisan spending increase.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

The game is rigged: Congress invites no consumer privacy advocates to its consumer privacy hearing

fromEFF: The upcoming hearing at the Senate Commerce Committee may be the launch pad for this strategy of undoing stronger state laws.
The Government is Not Us         Government is Watching Every Move You Make

WATCH: Cops dump 17 rounds into ‘good samaritan’ veteran as he tried to break up a fight

fromReason: A father of three and a Navy veteran was gunned down by two police officers as he tried to be a good Samaritan and break up a fight outside of a Portland bar. As usual, the cops are excused of accountability.
Police State America

Google caught on camera showing its bias

fromReason: The video within the article is evidence of the tech elitists who believe they should control what citizens see in searches so that Trump's trashed and all the successful things go unseen. 
Media Bias on Parade

Licensing Laws Shut Young People Out Of The Job Market

by Ben Casselman.  Young people entering the job market have always faced challenges: a lack of skills and experience, limited professional networks, unfamiliarity with workplace culture and expectations. But increasingly, they are also facing another obstacle: legal requirements that can shut off avenues to jobs before they even get the chance  ... MORE

Protecting Consumers From Speech-Chilling Lawsuits

by Michael Beckerman.    Summer is almost here, which means sun, fun, and summer vacations. It also means many of us are going to be spending time browsing online reviews to preview the good, the bad, and the ugly on travel locations. Imagine a world in which a hotel company could sue customers because they didn’t like their stay. What if  ... MORE

When Did The U.S. Repeal The Laws Of Supply & Demand?

by A. Barton Hinkle. Of soda taxes & minimum wage. Back in October, The New York Times reported that the law of supply and demand still works. "Yes, Soda Taxes Seem to Cut Soda Drinking," the newspaper told its readers, relating the results of Mexico's new tax on sugary beverages. Mexico's measure imposed a 10 percent tax on soft drinks, and so  ... MORE

Paul Bedard: Americans Are Now Spending More On Taxes Than They Do On Food, Clothing And Housing Combined

After April 24, you get to work for yourself.    A tax advocacy group on Wednesday revealed that Americans spend more on taxes than their whole budget for food, clothing and housing. The Tax Foundation, in its annual report on when the nation as a whole has earned enough to pay its taxes, announced the date as April 24. "Tax Freedom Day  ... MORE

Salim Furth: Government Regulators Have Added At Least An Extra $3,800 To The Price Of Producing A New Car

The high cost of savings-government style.  When Congress and the Obama administration passed and implemented extremely strict fuel economy regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed that it would save consumers a few thousand dollars on gas and add only $948 to the price of a new car. Three teams of independent     ... MORE

Ed Butowsky: Calculating The True Cost Of Living

It's much higher than we're told/sold.   Over the past decade, we've been told that inflation has been tame -- actually below the target the Federal Reserve would like to see. But if that's true, then why does the average household find it harder and harder to get by? The ugly reality is that the true annual cost of living is far outpacing the       ... MORE

Walter E Williams: The Seen And The Unseen

Why Congress should get out of the miracle business.  Claude Frederic Bastiat (1801-50) — a French classical liberal theorist, political economist and member of the French National Assembly — wrote an influential essay titled "That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen." Bastiat argued that when making laws or economic decisions,   ... MORE

Baylen Linnekin: Is Mexico's Soda Tax Really Working?

Less consumption, same obesity.    Mexico has become the most obese country in the world. In a purported effort to combat the problem, the country implemented a one-peso-per-liter excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in January 2014. That tax, supporters claim, is working. A 2015 working paper by University of Chicago Prof.   ... MORE

VIDEO: Legalize Raw Milk - Nullify Federal Prohibition

How To Anonymize Everything You Do Online

by Andy Greenberg.    One year after the first revelations of Edward Snowden, cryptography has shifted from an obscure branch of computer science to an almost mainstream notion: It’s possible, user privacy groups and a growing industry of crypto-focused companies tell us, to encrypt everything from emails to IMs to a gif of a motorcycle jumping   ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Complicating The Obvious

Electronic "improvement" rears its ugly head.      Engineers who design computerized products and services seem to have an almost fanatical determination to avoid using plain English. It is understandable when complicated processes require complicated operations. But when the very simplest things are designed with needless complications  ... MORE

Lu Wang: 2015 - The Year Nothing Worked

Stocks, bonds, cash go nowhere.     Worst year for asset allocation funds since 1937. The idea behind asset allocation is simple: when one market struggles, it’s OK because an investor can jump into another that is thriving. Not so in 2015. In fact, if you judge the past year by which U.S. investment class generated the largest return, a case can be    ... MORE

Politically-Correct Food Keeps Poisoning Its Customers

by Roberto A Ferdman and Abha Bhattarai. Chipotle became the darling of the fast-food world by attracting millennials, blue-collar workers and even whole families with its promise of high-quality, sustainably sourced Mexican-inspired cuisine. But a series of food poisonings and other challenges are threatening its reputation and underscoring the  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Conceit Of The Political Elite

Jacob Sullum: Pot Pleasure, Pot Problems

As prohibition collapses, abuse is less likely.  It stands to reason that legalizing marijuana, by making it easier, cheaper, and less risky to obtain, would encourage consumption. That is mostly a positive development, since it implies greater consumer satisfaction as more people enjoy a product that prohibition made harder to get.     ... MORE

The Free Market: It’s Like Uber, But For Everything

by Robert Tracinski.      If it sometimes seems like it’s impossible to restore the free market, as if every new wave of government regulation is irreversible, then consider that one form of regulation, which is common in the most dogmatically big-government enclaves in the country, is being pretty much completely dismantled before our eyes. And it’s the  ... MORE

Henry L. Miller: The Dirty Truth About "Organic"

In denial of reality.       Passionate advocates of organic farming and foods resemble members of a religious cult, one founded on a “back to Nature” mentality. They are not so fundamentalist, however, that they do not make concessions to reality. For example, organic standards arbitrarily define which pesticides are acceptable, but allow “deviations”   ... MORE

SF’s LAST GUN SHOP To Close Over City’s New Regs

by Jessica Chasmar.   San Francisco’s last gun shop has been a defiant fixture against the liberal city’s suffocating arms policies for more than 60 years, but a new set of regulations is forcing the owners to finally throw in the towel. The proposed new regulations would require High Bridge Arms in San Francisco’s Mission District to videotape all transactions  ... MORE

VIDEO: Is The Free Market Survival Of The Fittest?