A Fed Takeover by Any Other Name... | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

A Fed Takeover by Any Other Name... | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "resident Obama has gone to great pains to deny that his proposed health-care reform is a government takeover of the health-care system.

'Nothing could be further from the truth,' he has said.

Yet it's hard to see the 1,994-page bill that the House passed last night as anything else. After all, the bill uses the command 'shall' -- as in 'you shall do this,' 'businesses shall do that' and 'government shall do some other thing' -- 3,345 times.

Not a great deal of choice or options there.

To make sure that we obey these 'shalls,' the bill would create 111 government agencies, boards, commissions and other bureaucracies -- all overseen by a new health-care czar bearing the Orwellian title 'commissioner of health choices.'"

"That means every time a doctor decides on a treatment, he or she would have to ask: 'Does the government think I'm doing this too much? Will I be penalized if I order this test?'

The government would also undertake comparative- and cost-effectiveness research and use the results to impose practice guidelines on providers."

"Given that the government has mismanaged everything from "cash for clunkers" to the swine-flu vaccine (not to mention the Iraq war and the response to Hurricane Katrina), how much of our health-care system do we really want it to control?"

Should We Believe the GDP? - Doug French - Mises Institute

Should We Believe the GDP? - Doug French - Mises Institute: "Murray Rothbard always made the point in his class lectures that GDP figures were suspect because government outputs are included. Of course, government doesn't produce anything that consumers will pay for willingly, thus it must take from the productive economy to provide these services. So there is at least double counting of the outputs."

Currency That Kills | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

Currency That Kills | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: "It has been well-known for decades that paper currency is a major source of disease transmission. During the life of the average dollar bill, it will be handled by hundreds, if not thousands, of people. It is hard to think of any physical object that is handled by more different people than paper currency."

Krugman's Magic Solution to Budgetary Woes - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Institute

Krugman's Magic Solution to Budgetary Woes - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Institute: "The real problem with my household finances wasn't that we were underearning or overspending. No, the real problem was that our superstitious bank decided to peg its unit of account rigidly to the dollar at 1:1."

"I informed [the managers of my local bank] — in case the boobs didn't already know — that Dr. Krugman not only teaches at Princeton, but is a Nobel (Memorial) laureate, for goodness' sake. Taking his advice, I henceforth want to devalue my checking account, so that when I write a check for 500 units, the bank only transfers $250 to the person whose goods I am purchasing."

" Immediately, my household's budget crisis is solved, for I now have double the effective reserves as I previously did. Making my mortgage payment is no longer a struggle!

But this isn't just about me. With my depreciated bank currency, I can spend more freely on local merchants, thus boosting business in my community. Before removing the absurd 1:1 dollar peg, my wife and I would have had to sharply curtail our consumption. This is no longer a concern, thanks to the magic of modern monetary analysis."

If You Believe in IP, How Do You Teach Others? - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Institute

If You Believe in IP, How Do You Teach Others? - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Institute: "Another approach is the one taken by Harvard and, most explicitly, by the University of Texas, which has suggested that professors make the following contract with students:

My lectures are protected by state common law and federal copyright law. They are my own original expression and I record them at the same time that I deliver them in order to secure protection. Whereas you are authorized to take notes in class thereby creating a derivative work from my lecture, the authorization extends only to making one set of notes for your own personal use and no other use. You are not authorized to record my lectures, to provide your notes to anyone else or to make any commercial use of them without express prior permission from me.
You can make 'no other use' of what you learn? Really? That sort of smashes the whole point of education, doesn't it?


The goal of the university is to spread knowledge, not to grant a one-time use for what you learn in the classroom. The aim of an individual student is to gain knowledge that is used in every possible way for a lifetime — and to pass the ideas on to others.

In fact, what the contract requires is impossible. It is not as if our bodies are equipped with hard drives that can be wiped clean after the semester is over. In any case, even if we were so equipped, that would defeat the whole point of taking classes and paying universities for offering them."

Delayed Economic Reform Killed 14.5 Million Children | Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar | Cato Institute: Commentary

Delayed Economic Reform Killed 14.5 Million Children | Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar | Cato Institute: Commentary: "This shows that the delay in reforms led to an additional 14.5 million infant deaths, an additional 261 million illiterates, and an additional 109 million poor people. Indian socialism delivered a monumental tragedy, lacking both growth and social justice."