The Outstater: Social Capital
by Craig Ladwig When a business looks to relocate in your community, the economic-development types will make its owners aware of favors that the political establishment can bestow. These will represent fixed or political capital — tax-increment financing, rebates, zoning exceptions, access to the mayor’s office, an inside track to municipal contracts, that sort of Read the full article…
Van Cott: Economists and Tariffs
by T. Norman Van Cott, Ph.D. There are two primary reasons for economists’ opposition to tariffs. First, by raising U.S. prices of imports, tariffs encourage high-cost domestic production of import substitutes. This production would be uneconomic in the tariffs’ absence. Cost measures what people sacrifice to obtain a particular objective, so substituting higher cost domestic Read the full article…
Franke: Socialism Still Doesn’t Work
by Mark Franke “I have seen the future, and it works!” wrote the journalist Lincoln Steffens after visiting the Soviet Union in 1919. Except that it didn’t. Why bring this up now, nearly 30 years after the fall of the USSR and its communist- totalitarian system of repression and deprivation? Because a new generation of Read the full article…
Schansberg: Universal Basic Income
by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. Andrew Yang is one of many Democratic candidates for U.S. President in 2020. Unlike most of his competitors, Yang is intelligent and sounds like a policy wonk. He’s eloquent and brims with joy. He’s thoughtful about policy and worried about both people and society. But Yang is a mess on many Read the full article…
Morris: The Electoral College
by Leo Morris Let’s cut to the chase on our current relapse into anti-Electoral College fever. No matter what high-minded reasons partisans espouse, many also all have selfish motivations for their positions. A great number of Electoral College opponents are liberals and/or Democrats who believe an end to the current system will ensure the election Read the full article…
Gaski: Buttigieg’s New Socialism
“Liberalism is piecemeal socialism, and socialism always attacks three institutions: religion, family and property. Religion, because it offers a rival authority to the State; family, because it means a rival loyalty to the State; property, because it means independence to the State.” — Joe Sobran PETER BUTTIGIEG’S PROMOTION of socialist policies in his presidential campaign Read the full article…
