WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AMERICANS STOP PLAYING BY THE RULES “If, as it appears, the election will come down to Trump vs. Biden, the U.S. is headed for a constitutional crisis and the social and political chaos that implies. Like prisoners of the economists’ dilemma, there...

A DOOMSDAY GUIDE Each morning, we wake up and turn on the news, thinking things cannot get worse — but they do. From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, most things have gone downhill. So how do you protect your family when previously low-probability events such...

IS AMERICA DESTINED TO STAGNATE AND COLLAPSE LIKE THE SOVIET UNION? Do all jobs have the same value? More people working should lead to higher real incomes, except when the jobs are destroying wealth. Wages have been rising, but prices are rising even faster. So the...

BIG-SPENDER STATES OFFER FEWER BENEFITS THAN THEIR MORE PRUDENT PEERS There are unpredictable disasters, like earthquakes, and predictable disasters, like deaths caused by a war. And there are predictable disasters, like a surge in crime stemming from abolishing bail,...

DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIST SHUNNED FOR SAYING CLIMATE CRISIS OVERBLOWN What is the probability of dying from an external event, rather than from an ailment such as cancer or heart disease? As an exercise, list the following external potential life-ending events in order...

ENTREPRENEURS MAKE US WEALTHIER WHILE GOVERNMENT MONEY MANAGERS LEAD US TO RUIN Almost everyone has far more wealth due to technological advances than anyone had 30 years ago, yet their money balance sheets and that of most governments flirt with bankruptcy. How can...

GOVERNMENTS ACT TO KEEP THEIR CURRENCY MONOPOLY If a carpenter were trying to build a house and his measuring stick (ruler) randomly changed in length from week to week, the tool would be of little use. France adopted the metric system in the 1790s to provide a...

A major hurricane hit Florida last week, and only one person died directly — amazing! The lesson is that mankind can engineer its way out of most of the adverse effects of climate change or spend billions and trillions more on unproven schemes to alter the...

The American Founding Fathers created a federal republic as the best form of government they could devise to protect persons and property and ensure liberty. Unfortunately, the federal government has evolved from the protector of the people to the biggest scammer. The...

Why did Vladimir Putin’s Russia invade Ukraine? Ukraine posed no threat to Russia, and it was smaller and poorer. The Russians and Ukrainians shared some history, ethnic background and religion. Many Ukrainians used Russian as a first or second language. To the extent...

IT'S HARD TO SEE A GRACEFUL EXIT FROM THE CURRENT MESS President Biden and former President Donald Trump are now in a legal death match, where, for either one to stay out of prison, his opponent will probably go to prison. The Biden Democrats have made no secret that...

Many bright young people come to Washington — to do good. Some do right well. A few others go to jail. But most eventually end up feeling various degrees of disgust. In 1973, recently out of graduate school and immediately following a stint as the New York director of...

Is the press more biased now than in the past? Owners of newspapers have always supported their friends and impugned their opponents. In the early days of the American republic, when paper was very expensive, journalists would produce one-page bulletins that might...

Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss is being accused of deliberately letting the statute of limitations run out on Hunter Biden’s failure to pay his full taxes for 2014 and 2015. If this is true, it is further evidence of substantial corruption in the Justice...

The good news is that inflation is slowing, largely because of the reduction in money growth over the last year or so. The bad news is that the unemployment rate will increase. (It already has but is disguised by the reduction in the labor force participation rate.)...

Imagine you have an entirely legal business in your home state, but certain politicians and powerful government bureaucrats do not like your business for personal or political reasons and are determined to shut you down. One of the easiest ways for government tyrants...

This past Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that all Americans are entitled to “equal protection of the laws,” as stated in the 14th Amendment. The case was about colleges discriminating against some students because of their race or ethnic background — e.g., “No...

A functioning democracy and civil society depend on most people having a high level of honesty and a low tolerance for corruption by those in government. The U.S. in the past was justifiably known for its adherence to the rule of law and high level of civic honesty....