I am sitting in the San Antonio airport, waiting for my flight back home, reflecting on an excellent Values and Capitalism retreat here and–the subject of this blog–my walk yesterday. My goal was to walk to a bookstore about two miles from my downtown hotel. I had mapped it out using Googlemaps and set out […]
Archives
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The City of Man
15 Jan 2017
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A Real-Life Story of Bureaucratic Dysfunction
21 Dec 2016
If you want to read a classic insider narrative of the degeneration and dysfunction of a large and powerful (and unlimited) federal bureaucracy, read here: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443227/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-tragic-failures. The article chronicles the work of one highly placed lawyer in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before it was slapped hard by the Federal courts. I have frequently written about […]
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Bureaucracy and the New President
20 Dec 2016
I was reading an interesting article in Reason today that directly addressed one of the major issues I have raised before and frequently alluded to (see http://reason.com/archives/2016/12/19/trump-versus-the-we-bes, December 20, 2016). It has to do with the theme of “Trump versus the bureaucracy.” One could substitute any president’s name in that slogan since the 1930s at […]
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In an article from CNS News dated December 16, 2016, we have the new but predictable Census Bureau statistics on median income for households in counties of the United States. The first four richest counties are, …, you guessed it, all in the Washington, DC area, and range from about $99,000 per year to $122, […]
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Trump’s Trumps
15 Dec 2016
A new controversy–well, not really new, just renewed–has now taken the stage regarding President-Elect Donald Trump’s transition. This one concerns the “flavor” of his cabinet choices, taken collectively. The media and Democrats are trying to figure out (1) what they tell us about Trump and (2) what the supporter–stakeholders think about the choices. Those are […]
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Elitism and Elitism
02 Dec 2016
Am I an elitist? Does the fact that I support the continued existence of the Electoral College make me elitist? Does my sometimes suspicion of democracy in its raw form make me elitist? And, is being an elitist all bad? Or is there some distinction between being an elitist and a pernicious brand of elitism? […]
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Mr. Trump is not yet inaugurated, and he is already achieving notable policy success. This week’s decision by Carrier to keep 1000 jobs in Indiana rather than moving to Mexico is seen as a vindication against Mr. Obama’s “hand’s off” approach to job loss from globalization. In reality, Mr. Trump is repeating the same mistakes […]
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A Really Bad Legacy, and How to Reverse It
17 Nov 2016
President Obama and his executive agencies set a new record for the number of pages of new regulations in one day: 527 pages (in a single day!). For the year the number of pages so far is also a record, at 81,640 pages. It is also worth noting that seven of the the top eight […]
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Earmarks, Pork and the Meat Axe: Time for Action
17 Nov 2016
Today Representative John Culbertson (R-Texas) pulled (that is, withdrew) a bill that would have made changes to the earmark ban the House imposed earlier. An earmark is basically an addition to a bill that includes some kind of project or spending for the congressman’s home district. It is a rider. And normally, it constitutes “pork […]
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Why? And What Now?
09 Nov 2016
At about 3 AM last night we were informed that Donald Trump would be our 45th president. My daughter photographed the screen and we all went to bed. But now the next phase in all this process begins: governance–which is very different from winning a campaign. Before I get to that, let me say a […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
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