One line from last night’s debate leapt out at me. It wasn’t a stumble amidst the cut and thrust of open debate. It was during President Obama’s closing statement—400 words that I’m guessing he and his staff crafted with painstaking care.
Read more on Mr. President, it isn’t your job to ‘channel’ America’s genius, grit and determination…
In my commentary this week, I reflect on the unemployment rate of many newly separated military veterans of our Armed Forces. The grim jobs outlook affects our reservists and National Guard forces too. As You Were, a book I reviewed on the PowerBlog in late 2009, touched on this topic quite a bit.
My commentary this week addresses the demonstrations in New York and in other cities against free enterprise and business. One of the main points I make in this piece is that “lost in the debate is the fundamental purpose of American government and the importance of virtue and a benevolent society.” Here is the list of demands by the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. It is in essence a laundry list of devastating economic schemes and handouts. Additionally, the demands are counter to America’s founding principles. The commentary is printed below:
Detroit has has been plagued by the economic downturn more than most cities, and has struggled to recover. However, sometimes gloomy economic conditions breed innovation. That is the focus of Jordan Ballor’s “Let Detroit’s farms flourish” which appeared in the Detroit News.
My latest for Acton Commentary. I’m also adding a couple of videos from Hotep and the Institute for Justice.
By Anthony Bradley
If necessity is the mother of invention, then there is nothing worse than quenching the entrepreneurial spirit of people seeking to improve their situation by imposing arbitrary third-party constraints. America’s unemployment problems linger because hustlers cannot hustle.
Much of the blame for the current financial crisis has been aimed at Wall Street and the bankers who, the story goes, created toxic debt instruments and then lined their own pockets with the proceeds. In “Verdict on the Crash: Causes and Policy Implications,” a new analysis from economists and scholars — including Acton Institute Research Director Samuel Gregg — the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs comes to the opposite conclusion: It was governments and regulators who erred. Moreover, the IEA report says, the people most often berated for their part in the crisis – the hedge fund managers and those who run tax havens – are among the least guilty. The report also spells out the need for a “radical overhaul” of the financial system to guard against a repeat of the errors that led to the crisis.
Lawrence J. McQuillan offers a less than surprising economic assessment for the Golden State in the City Journal, causing people to flee for better opportunities elsewhere. McQuillan states:
California continues to be burdened with high taxes, punitive regulations, huge wealth-transfer programs, out-of-control spending, and lawsuit abuse. And there’s no end in sight to the state’s fiscal madness.
Some entrepreneurial minded residents are finding states like Nevada more hospitable for economic opportunity. Nevada ranks second when it comes to inbound migration. The Pacific Research Institute’s 2008 U.S. Economic Freedom Index ranked Nevada sixth in the country in “economic freedom.” South Dakota secured the top spot for 2008.
The Business and Media Institute highlights House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s response to a question about why conservatives and advocates for the free market degrade San Francisco as a city out of step with mainstream America. Pelosi believes it’s all about economics, and she points to the fact that government regulation and government programs in San Francisco are the model for America, and advocates for free markets are afraid of other citizens recognizing that. Pelosi says:
Read more on Speaker Pelosi on San Francisco Economics & Values…
Surely these are the words of a disciple of Hayek or Friedman, right?
Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior…
Backed by studies showing that middle-class Seattle residents can no longer afford the city’s middle-class homes, consensus is growing that prices are too darned high. But why are they so high?
