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In today’s New York Times, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman preens about intellectual dishonesty while presenting the most intellectually dishonest case about the cost of climate change policies I have seen this side of Joe Romm.  It moved me to do something I have not done for some time, and Fisk the entire article.  Krugman’s words are in italics.

So, have you enjoyed the debate over health care reform? Have you been impressed by the civility of the discussion and the intellectual honesty…

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Regina Herzlinger, chair of Harvard Business School, in National Review takes on health care and the Obama Administration’s arguments that a government-run plan would increase competition, provide more choice, and lead to greater cost efficiencies:

But before we get swept away, let us remember that these health-insurance markets would be monopolies run by government, two characteristics that normally do not enhance consumer welfare. Picture the efficiency of your Division of Motor Vehicles, for example.

Also consider government-run monopoly liquor stores. Despite their…

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Congressional Democrats are pushing hard to complete their health care bill before next week’s recess, but their hopes for a quick passage and the fulfilling of Obama’s goal of signing by October look increasingly bleak–especially since the drafting was done without Republican input, leading, of course, to a political firestorm.  The bill would mandate health insurance coverage for all Americans at enormous taxpayer expense and require major employer contributions, though there is not yet full agreement on the specifics of the burdens…

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Steve Forbes in the Washington Times today has a very nice tribute to CEI on its 25th Anniversary.  Forbes points out some of CEI’s significant achievements in pursuit of freedom and against expanding government and the real need for CEI and other free market groups to continue their strong defense of these principles.

Here’s his conclusion:

Groups like CEI are a crucial voice for entrepreneurs and all people who want to pursue their own destiny in life. That must seem like a lonely…

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If you’re a fan of professional print journalism, you may be a little worried as of late.  Denver’s Rocky Mountain News just closed its doors after nearly 150 years in the news game.  Meanwhile the San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer are both on life support.  Even the New York Times, the largest newspaper in America, has cut its dividend and mortgaged its headquarters for $225 million.

It seems clear that the age of broadsheet newspapers is coming to an end,…

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In a running theme, I again cover the topic of the U.S. government’s heavy-handed dealings with swiss bank UBS.  A nod to my colleague John Berlau, whose letter in today’s Financial Times gives a nod to former ambassador Faith Whittlesey and her commentary in FT expressing concern over the Obama administration demanding the names of 52,000 Americans who do business with UBS.  As I stated in previous posts on this issue, these actions by federal authorities are setting a bad precedent for the privacy of…

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Regardless of your political party or ideological leanings, the notion of the federal government spending $2 trillion, adding to the national debt of nearly $11 trillion already, should make you stop and consider the staggering size of our national tab.

If the irony of using debt-based spending to solve a problem caused by debt-based spending has escaped you, perhaps these fun facts will put things into perspective:

If you spent $1 every second, you’d have to keep spending for 412,000 years to get…

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Major newspapers around the country including the Washington Post, the LA Times, and the Wall Street Journal are urging President-elect Barack Obama to pass the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in the lame duck session. The Los Angeles Times said it bluntly, “It’s time to stop playing games with a trade pact whose economic and political benefits are good for both nations.”

Some reports of the meeting between the president-elect and President Bush said that the president had pushed for the trade agreement in exchange…

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The Yahoo-Google ad deal looks like it’s dead.  The deal announced in June, would have allowed Google ads to appear on Yahoo search results.  Yahoo estimated an $800 million profit during the frist year of the Google ad partnership and would have allowed Yahoo to continue its transion from search to content provider, making it a much more competitive company.

What has likely killed the deal?  As stated in a Reuters article:

The two Internet companies have so far failed to reach an…

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Thanks to CEI colleague Gary Howard for sending along The Road to Serfdom in Cartoons; I’d forgotten all about this capsule version of Hayek’s masterwork.

It’s worth a read when we live in a world plagued all at once not just by a financial crisis and bailout, but by what the Wall Street Journal calls tax-and-spend “Obamanomics” from one candidate and a sweeping, trillion-dollar-plus cap-and-trade energy program by another; an arrogant United Nations agenda to restructure the global economy around green…

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Oh, Happy Day! And it certainly is for all those who value freedom, responsibility and the true free market in which individuals are free to profit from their risks on the condition that they don’t stick the rest of us with their losses.

It’s not hyperbole to say the Republican and Democratic backbenchers who defied both parties’ leadership to defeat this $700 billion package of Wall Street socialism literally saved America. Whatever their reasons, this defeat (or rather victory for freedom),…

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On the front page of the Washington Post, writer Steven Pearlstein contradicts himself by writing that mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are being “rescued from the harsh discipline of markets and the consequences of their own misjudgments,” undercutting arguments for “privatization, deregulation, and a faith in free markets.”

But the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is hardly an indictment of the free market: Fannie and Freddie are “Government-Sponsored Enterprises,” not products of the free market or the…

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