As we watched the Democratic and Republican Party presidential debates, I have heard some, but not nearly enough, discussion of the problems of the “regulatory state,” that is, that “Fourth Branch” of government affectionately called bureaucracy. Since this is a national election, I will confine my comments to the Federal agencies such as EPA, FCC, […]
Archives
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Another Modest Proposal
02 Nov 2015
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What is that one good thing (among others)? It is that his exit is potentially a blow to the US Chamber of Commerce, that supposedly “conservative” group of business leaders who are really not conservative except in a very limited sense. Here is what is going on. The Chamber has decided it will spend over […]
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Reason.com of August 16, 2015 has a very interesting article on occupational licensing by J. D. Tuccille. Occupational licensing is the requirement that individuals desiring to enter certain lines of work or service first obtain extensive and expensive training and also pay a licensing fee, sometimes quite high, in order to legally enter. Failure to […]
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The Millennial Problem
14 Aug 2015
I know some college students read this blog, so I will begin by citing a pretty good article in the August 6 edition of Reason.com (a libertarian periodical) entitled “How the Federal Government Betrayed the Millennials,” by Veronique de Rugy. Perhaps you don’t think the Feds did betray millennials (you know who you are). After […]
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Global Climate “Lukewarmness”
07 Aug 2015
I have been listening on Econtalk, a podcast production by economist Russ Roberts, to an interview with Matt Ridley, who calls himself a “lukewarmer” regarding climate change (by the way, I highly recommend Econtalk). To be a “lukewarmer” is to believe climate change is probably man-made, but not dangerous. Now before I get criticisms for […]
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Technocracy and Human Flourishing
03 Aug 2015
During the Obama administration, and especially the last five years after the passage of Obamacare, we have seen numerous attempts, some successful and others still in the process, to impose more Federal top-down regulations on all sorts of human activities. Besides Obamacare and its 15,000 pages of regulations, we have the massive regulatory scheme flowing […]
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As we continue in the “new normal” of lower than trend growth in the Obama Era, last week saw 2.3% growth in the 2nd qtr after only a revised upward 0.6% in the 1st qtr, we must ask why. I have argued before that whether you are a progressive or a conservative, you ought to […]
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My Berean colleague Mark Smith wrote a very astute piece for this blog on the recent announcement by Ohio Governor Jon Kasich as a candidate for the presidency in 2016. He received an interesting and stimulating comment, to which I wish to reply as a separate blog. If you want the entire comment, go to […]
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The latest session of the United States Supreme Court is finished. It was both busy and momentous (not always in a positive way). A few decisions were good. many were not. But the Supreme Court did get one important case right this term. That was the last case it handed down, the case of Michigan […]
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It looks as if the blow-up at Northwestern University has made the liberals very uneasy. A professor there, Laura Kipnis, who admits she herself is liberal and feminist, published an essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education. From an article on the situation by Rod Dreher, in The American Conservative, on June 2, we read […]
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