Are we divided?
Reason.tv’s Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie joined The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel on CNN’s In the Arena with Eliot Spitzer to discuss how divided both Washington and Americans are by ideology today…
What will it take to save the American Dream?
(The Heritage Foundation) Saving the American Dream is The Heritage Foundation’s plan to fix the debt, cut spending and, above all, restore prosperity. It balances the nation’s budget within a…
Economist soundtracks–Smith
In our economist soundtracks series, we now turn to the man who might well be described as the father of modern economics, Adam Smith. Adam Smith (baptized 16 June 1723 –…
The remedy for Fox and CNN
Beck Bennett charges America’s Youth with the challenge of dissecting the big issues and news and politics.
How to choose a winner
Thanks to another week of volatility in the markets, we are again face-to-face with the fact that there is absolutely no sensible reason for the movement of stock and derivatives…
Open-sourced blueprints for civilization
(TED) Using wikis and digital fabrication tools, TED Fellow Marcin Jakubowski is open-sourcing the blueprints for 50 farm machines, allowing anyone to build their own tractor or harvester from scratch….
Freedom: For Whom and From What?
These ideas need to be debated on a regular basis. Watch live streaming video from aynrandcenter at livestream.com
Economist soundtracks–Hayek
This is the second installment of “economist soundtracks”, dedicated to Keynes’ nemesis and challenger to statists everywhere, Friedrich A. Hayek. Friedrich August Hayek CH (8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992),…
Do-it-yourself service–weren’t we just talking about this?
(Slate) A Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup called E La Carte is hoping to ensure that no family has to endure such a nightmare again. It has produced a kind of…
Radically rethinking the way we fight poverty
The authors of Poor Economics have a point: Ideology drives a lot of policies, and even the most well-intentioned ideas can get bogged down by ignorance of ground-level realities and…
Economist soundtracks–Keynes
In this and subsequent “economist soundtracks”, we will feature a playlist of songs that highlight each economist’s life and work. To kick things off, I have chosen the economist that…
Inventing a frontier
On his Cafe Hayek blog, esteemed economist Don Boudreaux has recently ignited a fascinating conversation on the concept of limited land, inspired by the FLOWidealism listserve. In it, the idea…
Death of the Dollar?
(Money Morning) At 12:15 p.m. April 27, at the conclusion of a two-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, we’ll find out whether U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke…
A government of Hottentots
(Washington Post) It was billed as President Obama’s big speech on reducing the federal budget deficit. But the Wednesday afternoon address sounded at times like the speech he did not…
Intervention affects the economy even more when the intervention stops
(New York Times) Among the people anxiously waiting to hear if Congress can reach a budget deal are front desk clerks at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, manufacturing…
Perspective on the proposed budget cuts
(Reuters) – Congressional negotiators on Wednesday raced against a looming deadline to craft a budget deal that would cut billions of dollars in spending and keep the government operating beyond…
Is BitCoin the currency of the future?
In this podcast from EconTalk and the Library of Economics and Liberty, Gavin Andresen, Principal of the BitCoin Virtual Currency Project, talks with host Russ Roberts about BitCoin, an innovative…
How does adding debt prevent us from default?
Geithner’s suggestion is to raise the amount of debt the borrower can take in. But that only allows the borrower to get further in the hole, and end up owing more every year. If the borrower can’t pay off the debt as it stands, what is to say that he will be able to do so when the debt is more than his income?