On the heels of my post on upward mobility comes an insightful post by Cato’s Michael Tanner. Two key quotations: In the end, however, one has to ask a more basic question. Why do we care about inequality at all? Poverty, of course, is a bad thing. But is inequality? After all, if we doubled [...]

Say what you want about Ron Paul—and there is a lot to say—this is perhaps the best one-sentence commentary on his candidacy to date: It is quite remarkable that a man who renounced his membership in the Republican Party because he so despised the Ronald Reagan administration could now be running for the GOP nomination [...]

I read an interesting article on economic mobility in National Review Online, which got me thinking. The article is good in that it points out some of the statistical challenges in measuring upward mobility. For example, who counts as poor? Who counts as middle class? Are we measuring intergenerational or intragenerational mobility? In acknowledging these [...]

Never assume that a logical connection exists between some instance of what is and some ideal of what could be. Some things cannot be redeemed, but are best destroyed or simply left alone. Indeed, many of history’s saddest chapters began with efforts to turn a present but dying evil into a lively engine for good.

Houston is turning its red-light cameras back on today, but it isn’t happy about it. h/t Swamplot, via Sarah

HistoryNet has an article on the topic of cultural property and who owns it. The article, The War Over Plunder: Who Owns Art Stolen in War?, addresses some of the same topics I addressed in my comment for the Chicago Journal of International Law at the Law School of the University of Chicago, Keeping the [...]

When the Bank of England does anything for the first time – it’s 315 years old this year, after all – it’s worth noting.

I am glad to live in Texas, and glad I do not live in New York.

Wow, look at it go. For reference: this is only 8 days after the $7.4 trillion estimate and only 14 days after the $4.284 trillion estimate. That’s $4,216,000,000,000 in two weeks. If you really want a fright, keep reading. If we were to keep spending at this rate through the first 100 days of the [...]

In case you’ve already resumed sleeping normally after my prior post on the EMP threat, the Wall Street Journal has more to remind you of the danger.