Sidebar to Interview with Bob Barr Summer 2009 -- I am not surprised that Bob Barr, who has been a consultant for the ACLU, should take a litigious approach to the current financial crisis. But my own researches into post–World War II prosecutions of businessmen persuade me that such an approach to the crisis would sidetrack the needed investigation into what went wrong and substitute a witch-hunt against innocent people.

May 30, 2011

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November 18, 2010 -- The first great post-election policy decision facing the lame-duck, Democrat-dominated Congress is whether or not to allow taxes to skyrocket. Usually referred to as the “Bush tax cuts ,” the rates that have been operative for most of this decade will expire at the end of 2010, reverting to much higher levels. Even President Obama and his Congressional allies agree that a return to the past rates would harm most Americans, forcing them to pay $150 billion or more annually in taxes as they struggle in a depressed economy. The debate is whether to allow higher rates to hit households making over $250,000 annually, a debate that reveals the sordid soul of the left.

May 30, 2011

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Edward Hudgins

Summer 2009 issue -- President Obama seems to have taken a page from Pastor Rick Warren’s playbook. POTUS is calling us

May 30, 2011

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3 Mins

Summer 2009 -- Analogies, like fire, are useful servants but dangerous masters. Is the analogy with entrepreneurs a useful guide to the

May 30, 2011

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David Kelley Ph.D

3 Mins

August 30, 2002 -- Objectivism distinguishes between errors of ignorance and errors of morality, and libertarianism distinguishes between

May 30, 2011

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8 Mins

Editor’s Note: Bob Barr’s wide-ranging career has spanned law and politics, and multiple roles, including CIA analyst (1971-1978)..

May 30, 2011

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Lance Lamberton

10 Mins

I received myTNI in the mail today. The look is stunning, far superior to anything I expected, to be quite honest. The layout, graphics,

May 30, 2011

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7 Mins

The scourge of smallpox is ancient—Pharaoh Ramses V is thought to have died of the illness in 1157 B.C. Yet smallpox did not become a major

May 30, 2011

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6 Mins

In the new year of 1803, America consisted of sixteen states. There were no prairie dogs or grizzly bears. No jackrabbits or bighorn sheep..

May 30, 2011

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Russell La Valle

6 Mins

Children often behave in an irresponsible, irrational, emotionally charged manner with very bad results—valuables broken, someone hurt..

May 27, 2011

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Edward Hudgins

6 Mins

Citizens, candidates, and commentators must make a crucial distinction between true capitalism and crony capitalism. In the former...

May 26, 2011

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2 Mins

As the director of the Business Rights Center at the fiercely pro-capitalist Atlas Society, I shall not be accused, I think, of harboring

May 20, 2011

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3 Mins

Christianity is particularly prone to such nonsense. After all, the Book of Revelation is all about doomsday, though with details from a....

May 18, 2011

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Edward Hudgins

4 Mins

In this webinar, presented on March 25th, 2011, William R Thomas presents his view that goodwill and trust are Objectivist social values. He goes on to discuss the virtues of honesty and integrity as means of earning trust, and presents David Kelley's concept of benevolence, arguing that it is the key virtue for winning goodwill.

May 16, 2011

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Judge others, and prepare to be judged. We live in society, but how can we deal with others in a way that promotes rational, productive

May 16, 2011

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2 Mins

Are you rational? Or do you yield often to vices such as emotionalism, bias, and dogmatism? On October 21st, 2010, William R Thomas lead an

May 16, 2011

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1 Mins

Are you true to your values and your world-view? Integrity is the virtue of acting consistently for the sake of long-range values....

May 16, 2011

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2 Mins

July/August 2007 -- Okay, I know, that’s a cheap pun. But this July–August 2007 issue marks the start of my third year at the helm of The

May 12, 2011

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Robert James Bidinotto

7 Mins

May 11, 2011 -- Yesterday, May 10, the backdated options witch-hunt began drawing to its close. A three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case of Greg Reyes, the former CEO of Brocade, who was convicted of committing securities fraud by backdating options at his company. Coincidentally, Reyes was the first person to be indicted in connection with backdated options, back in 2006. Now his case bodes to be the last resolved, even as he languishes in prison. Unfortunately, the appellate court was not able to consider the most general policy questions in the Reyes case: How did the SEC come to institute an absurd rule of accounting for backdated options? Who made the decision to criminalize violations of that absurdity? And why were only a few people targeted for criminal prosecution in the matter? The legal questions that the appeals court was asked to consider included: Was there a substantive misstatement of the law in Reyes’s trial? Was there prosecutorial misconduct? Was the conviction beyond the pale, given the evidence?

May 11, 2011

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April 2003 -- On April 15th the news is always full of stories about taxpayers standing in long lines at post offices to file their returns on time. Occasionally there are sidebar stories about some proposed tax cut or reform that might help the economy: stories that usually disappear by the next day’s news cycle. But perhaps tax stories would remain in the headlines—and tax policy on the front burner—if they were treated as moral and not merely economic matters. Why should we acquiesce when governments take our money? We’d be pretty upset if thugs stole our wallets at gunpoint or thieves broke into our homes and carried off our possessions. That’s because we understand that the only moral way for individuals to deal with one another is through mutual consent rather than through the initiation of force, with each individual respecting the equal rights of others.

May 10, 2011

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Edward Hudgins