September 19, 2017

How the government can steal your stuff: 6 questions about civil asset forfeiture answered

from The Conversation: Civil asset forfeiture laws let authorities, such as federal marshals or local sheriffs, seize property – cash, a house, a car, a cellphone – that they suspect is involved in criminal activity.
Police State America

Stop encouraging people to live in dangerous places

from Reason: Make Harvey and Irma our last blank checks, and from here on out, have people pay their own freight for living dangerously.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Walter E Williams: The Welfare State Legacy

from Creators Syndicate: So you think that the problems of today's black Americans are a result of a legacy of slavery, racial discrimination and poverty?
The Welfare State: Promoting Dependence

Internet raises $80k for hot dog vendor mugged by government

from Foundation for Economic Freedom: A cop steals money from a hot dog vendor's wallet. Then, the Internet provides justice.
Police State America

🎬  So you think money is the root of all evil?

from LibertyPen: Excerpts from Atlas Shrugged in response to the comment that money is the root of all evil. From the brilliant Ayn Rand
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

America does not need socialism, but more laissez-faire capitalism

from Capitalism Magazine: Very often bad ideas do not die. They simply reappear during periods of supposed social and political crisis in slightly different intellectual garb.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

VIDEO: Who Cares About Inequality?

VIDEO: What Creates Wealth

VIDEO: Tom Woods - Those Robber Barons

VIDEO: Government: Is It Ever Big Enough?

California’s Carl’s Jr. Says So Long, Golden State

They know when they are not wanted.  States: To hear Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, you’d think that taxes can go up to 60% or even 80%, and businesses and investors will just … pay up. But the growing number of businesses stampeding out of high tax areas suggest that they’re very wrong. We got more evidence of that this week when CKE   ... MORE

California Climate Policies Chilling Housing Growth

by Steven Greenhut. The California Supreme Court's decision late last month to reject a nearly 6,000-page environmental report for a proposed development north of Los Angeles will not only delay or possibly kill a new suburban community. It will make it much more difficult for developers anywhere in California to build large-scale housing projects.     ... MORE

How Climate Change Activism Harms Third World Countries

by Shikha Dalmia.   To avert a tragedy, they'll cause one. You wouldn't know it from the happy spin emanating from the Oval Office, but a Third World revolt in Bonn, Germany, this week almost derailed the Paris climate change negotiations in November. Although peace has been restored for now, it only happened by papering over this       ... MORE

VIDEO: George Gilder - Why The Stimulus Didn't Work

A brilliant explanation in just under a minute.

VIDEO: Art Laffer - Rand Paul's Tax Plan

VIDEO: Rand Paul's Fair And Flat Tax

VIDEO: Milton Friedman - The Reagan Years

Steve Forbes: Income Tax Rate Cuts Work. Always.

The federal government could learn from the states.  One of the genius features of our federal system of government is that it allows states to be laboratories for policies, to see what works and what doesn’t. The great welfare reform bill of 1996 came out of the pioneering policies of Wisconsin, which demonstrated that there could be a work   ... MORE

U.S. Economic Growth Nearly Grinding To A Halt

by Chico Harlan.       The U.S. economy ground nearly to a halt in the first three months of the year, according to government data released Wednesday morning, as exports plunged and severe winter weather helped keep consumers indoors. The gross domestic product grew between January and March at an annualized rate of 0.2 percent,      ... MORE

Rick Moran: Obama's 'Record-Breaking' Economy

What happened to the labor force?  Corporate profits are sky-high, Wall Street is on an historic winning streak – and President Obama must be extremely grateful that commentary about his framework nuclear deal with Iran sucked up all the media oxygen so that the terrible jobs report that came out on Friday was largely ignored. Zero Hedge gives  ... MORE

Study Shows Texas Has Most Economic Freedom

by Kristin Tate.    The Lone Star State is the most economically free state in the nation, according to a new report released by the Fraser Institute. The ranking took into account the size of government, taxes, red tape, and labor market freedom. The study said, "When the government taxes one person in order to give money to another, ... MORE

VIDEO: The Economics Of WALL-E

How San Francisco's Progressive Policies Hurt The Poor

by Scott Beyer.    In recent years, a contradiction has unfolded in San Francisco. On the one hand, the city continues to practice progressive economic policies. But rather than helping its poor and middle-class—as such policies are advertised as doing—these groups in San Francisco have become more unequal, downwardly mobile, and altogether     ... MORE

Dan Mitchell: America's Ever-Expanding Regulation Swamp

An economy tangled in red tape.      Maybe I’m biased because I mostly work on fiscal policy, but it certainly seems feasible to come up with rough estimates for the damage caused by onerous taxes and excessive spending. On a personal level, for instance, we have a decent idea of how much the government takes from us and we know  ... MORE

Why Federal Agencies Run Amok

by Arthur G. Sapper & M. Miller Baker.      A prominent federal appeals court in Washington, one step below the Supreme Court, recently announced that the Federal Communications Commission has the far-reaching power to impose “neutrality” rules on the Internet.  The court did so not because it found that Congress gave the FCC that    ... MORE