Would you vote for a politician who promised to both increase traffic congestion and increase your taxes — and yes, I wrote “increase.” For those of us who live in Northern Virginia that is precisely what happened last week, when our state and local government...

We have many ways to measure how well public officials in all countries are behaving. Each year, various organizations provide country rankings as to how well countries are doing in maintaining economic freedom, restraining corruption, protecting civil liberties,...

The two biggest causes of death in the 20th century were smallpox and democide. As bizarre as it may seem, there are growing numbers of people who are lobbying to bring back policies that caused so much human misery. Smallpox was finally eradicated in 1980, but not...

The good news is that the U.S. economy is now on track to grow more than 3 percent this year for the first time in 13 years. The bad news is that the economy would be growing even faster if it were not for policy mistakes. Business people and investors hate...

As I write this, there is a caravan of several thousand people coming north, primarily from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, with the intent of illegally entering into the United States. Honduras has roughly a tenth of the per capita income of the United States,...

All of us are subject to many thousands of federal, state, and local laws and regulations, many of which are needlessly oppressive. Who makes these rules, and who enforces them? And at what point are there so many rules that we are no longer free? James Madison, the...

Edinburgh, Scotland This historic and most interesting city has never looked better, even during its earlier pre-eminence in the late 1700s when Adam Smith lived and died here. The current economy is largely based on financial services, research and tourism — all of...

Las Palmas, Canary Islands This small group of volcanic islands off the African coast is one of the more interesting places on Earth with almost ideal temperatures. The name comes from the Latin, meaning islands of the dogs, not the birds. The Spanish gained control...

Montreal, Canada Good news — the United States is becoming a bit more economically free. The “Economic Freedom of the World 2018 Annual Report,” published by the Fraser Institute of Vancouver, Canada, and co-operating think tanks around the world, is released today....

Many problems exist because the activity is mispriced and/or the key decision makers lack the proper incentives. Argentina is going through another financial crisis which occurs almost like clockwork every few years. The country spends more than it receives in taxes;...

For the past two years, most major media outlets have been running non-stop about what a disaster President Trump is, and how his mere existence is a threat to both citizens’ pocketbooks and liberty. Yet the economy has been booming, and lower taxes and fewer...

Last week, the Federal Reserve announced that it had reached its goal of a 2 percent inflation rate. Why not 1 percent or 4 percent or better yet, zero? The act creating the Federal Reserve back in 1913 tasked the Fed with the goal of price stability — which in normal...

From the beginning of time, people have moved from less desirable to more desirable places. In early times, the main driver of migration was the availability of food. In the modern world, the big drivers of migration are economic opportunity, including well-paying...

There is the natural human tendency to try to dominate or bully our fellow man or woman. Now, it is often done by the use of government institutions and procedures. The leaders of small tribes conquered other tribes as a way of extending their power. Eventually, these...

Will China overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy? Perhaps, because it has about four times as many people as the United States; but U.S. per capita income will still be far greater unless China can institute a rule of law equal to that of the rich...

Yellowstone, Wyoming Why are bison no longer endangered? There are an estimated 5,000 bison in Yellowstone National Park owned by the government. An estimated almost 100 times as many, from 300,000 to 500,000, are in herds that are privately owned. A century ago, the...

The “new normal” is 2 percent economic growth as we were endlessly told by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters in the 2016 campaign. Unlike all previous administrations, economic growth never reached a 3 percent annual rate during the Obama years. Many...

There are a number of international organizations and U.S. government agencies that should be abolished because they both destroy wealth and liberty. Officials of the Trump administration understand the problem but do not have the ability to take the corrective...