When it comes to things such as environmental policy, the Progressives have been rather successful at promoting their world view.  They realized that it would be futile to argue that property rights and human ingenuity could not solve anything - so they did not try (immediately) to socialize oil or other sub-surface minerals but they did succeed in derailing the evolutionary process by which institutions emerged to resolve emerging problems.  The economist Ronald Coase  noted this in an essay pointing out…

Read the full story

A new RAND Corporation study that purports to show a link between teen pregnancy and viewing TV shows with strong sexual content seems just like the kind of publicity-engendering publication that researchers love as a way to help attract research dollars. Indeed, a look at the study’s abstract reveals language so tentative as to bring the whole exercise into question. Under “Conclusions,” it reads:

This is the first study to demonstrate a prospective link between exposure to sexual content on television and the…

Read the full story

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),…

Read the full story