Economics

Would you prefer to live in a country that has: The rule of law with an honest civil service, strong protection of private property and minority rights, free trade, free markets, very low taxes, and full freedom of the speech, press and religion, but not a democracy? Democracy and a corrupt court and civil service, many restrictions on economic freedom, Read More ›

Would you be willing to give up all of your tax deductions — state and local taxes, mortgage interest, church and charitable contributions, etc. — in exchange for sharply lower tax rates? With the return of Congress, the debate is about to begin again. One major obstacle to tax reform is the confusion in the minds of most Americans (and Read More ›

Suppose you were appointed global economic czar, and your task was to bring the world’s per capita income up to the level of Ireland’s (almost that of the U.S.). Would you: Insist the world’s rich nations transfer substantial wealth though massive foreign aid to the poor nations? Insist all nations adopt policies that would make them as economically free as Read More ›

Helping to cover-up a crime and/or willfully ignoring it is in itself a criminal offense, yet it appears that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has done just that. Two decisions just handed down by the High Court of Justice in London about one of Africa’s most corrupt and entrenched regimes — The Republic of Congo — raise important and disturbing Read More ›

Europe has not yet suffered from bird flu, but it suffers from an even more debilitating economic flu — excessive government dependency. That dependency is sapping both its economic vitality and its spirit and has grown most acute in the core of Europe: Germany, France and Italy. We need to help our European friends fight this disease, not through a Read More ›

If you are saving money for retirement or to put a child through school, would you be likelier to buy the stock of a company with a reputation for providing a good return to its shareholders or one that prides itself on its “social responsibility”? You may like to do both, but the evidence is companies that change their focus Read More ›

Why would any self-respecting boy want to attend one of America’s increasingly feminized universities? Most of these institutions have flounced through the last forty years fashioning a fluffy pink playpen of feminist studies and agitprop “herstory,” taught amid a green goo of eco-motherism and anti-industrial phobia. They routinely showcase such trendy trumperies as The Vagina Monologues, while sacrificing thousands of Read More ›

Before members of Congress leave for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, they are to take a test in economic literacy: their vote on extending the tax cuts President Bush proposed and Congress voted for in 2003, including the current maximum 15 percent long-term capital gains tax rate. The tax cuts worked very well in revitalizing the economy, which has Read More ›

Slough (meaning muddy field), England, is not a lovely place. It is east of London, a bit beyond Heathrow Airport — a glum commuter town. The BBC, in a made-for-television social experiment, “Making Slough Happy,” is trying to make Slough a happier place by giving the town group therapy, bizarre as that may seem. I am all for happiness (mine Read More ›

Have you noticed Congress and administrations periodically claim they will save a great deal in some government program by ending “waste, fraud, and abuse,” and then provide a “number” representing the obtainable savings? Yet few ever ask how the waste, fraud, and abuse got there in the first place, and why they are not taken out of every other government Read More ›

This article, published by The Claremont Institute, mentions Discovery Institute Senior Fellow George Gilder: Around this time, another revolution was underway, one that would also change how Republicans viewed government. This was supply-side economics — —or “Reaganomics.” Ronald Reagan learned from supply-siders like Arthur Laffer, George Gilder, and Paul Craig Roberts that taxes matter, and that cutting excessive tax rates Read More ›