End the Fed, Or Celebrate Its Existence? Reflections on Our Central Bank's 100th Anniversary | James A. Dorn | Cato Institute

End the Fed, Or Celebrate Its Existence? Reflections on Our Central Bank's 100th Anniversary | James A. Dorn | Cato Institute: "The Fed’s failure to anticipate or prevent either the Great Recession or the Great Depression, the continuous rise in the price level since President Nixon closed the gold window in 1971, and the Fed’s use of financial repression to penalize conservative savers while encouraging risk and creating asset bubbles should give pause to celebrating the Fed’s anniversary."

"since the establishment of the Federal Reserve there have been “more, rather than fewer, symptoms of monetary and macroeconomic instability.” "

"It is also well known that long-run price stability was achieved under commodity standards but never under pure fiat money. In 1900, when the U.S. was still on the gold standard, the wholesale price index was about where it was 150 years earlier, although it varied throughout the period."

“What induced one major Western country after another to run a more-or-less balanced budget in the 19th century and early 20th century before World War I was their decision to adhere to the gold standard.”

Lawbreakers at War: How Responsible Are They? | David Isenberg | Cato Institute

Lawbreakers at War: How Responsible Are They? | David Isenberg | Cato Institute: "Even though the massacre in the Philippines was carried out by a subordinate commander, Imperial Japanese Navy Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi, against Yamashita’s specific order — and without his knowledge or approval — a U.S. military tribunal held Yamashita responsible for the conduct of his troops. He was executed on February 23, 1946."

Global Warming Apocalypse Canceled | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute

Global Warming Apocalypse Canceled | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: "we are now in our 17th year of flat temperatures"

"it’s a pretty good bet that we are going to go nearly a quarter of a century without warming."

"Science historians have repeatedly documented that we are particularly reluctant to abandon widely held views, or scientific paradigms. When professional advancement (i.e., research money) is particularly dependent upon a certain view (we wouldn’t spend billions on climate research unless it was important, right?), it’s even harder to let go"

Protectionist Antidumping Regime Is a Pox on America's Glass House | Daniel J. Ikenson | Cato Institute

Protectionist Antidumping Regime Is a Pox on America's Glass House | Daniel J. Ikenson | Cato Institute: "To this day, the United States remains out of compliance in cases involving U.S. subsidies to cotton farmers, restrictions on Antigua’s provision of gambling services, country of origin labeling requirements on meat products, the so-called Byrd Amendment, a variety of antidumping measures, and several other issues, some of which were adjudicated more than a decade ago."

Obama Brings New Historical Disgrace on U.S. | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute

Obama Brings New Historical Disgrace on U.S. | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: “The administration has declared any man killed by a drone to be an enemy terrorist, and defends such killings regardless of resulting civilian casualties.”

"Now, all of you who voted to re-elect Obama, dig what the president said when, on Jan. 7, he proudly declared his choice for CIA chief: “(Brennan) has worked to embed our efforts in a strong legal framework.” "

"In effect — and especially as employed by the Obama administration — the CIA has become the president’s private army, with a classified budget, contracts with some extremely dubious operatives and under-the-table relations with thuggish and oppressive foreign governments. With its fleet of armed drones, it regularly rains death from the skies on enemies (some of them American citizens)."

“The administration is now backed into claiming that a war exists because it has convinced itself that it cannot function without a broad license to kill. Short of al Qaeda suing for peace, this war may never end. The administration’s reshaping of the concept of war risks undoing over 100 years of evolution of the laws of war, and the protections those laws have delivered.”

Faith in Immigration Enforcement Is Misplaced | Alex Nowrasteh | Cato Institute

Faith in Immigration Enforcement Is Misplaced | Alex Nowrasteh | Cato Institute: "This administration has deported, on average, 3.5 percent of the total unauthorized immigrant population annually. President George W. Bush’s deportation rate during his eight years was a mere 2.4 percent. In 2009, the first year of Obama’s administration, the government deported 3.6 percent of all unauthorized immigrants — a big jump from the 3.1 percent during Bush’s last year in office. Obama has deported an average of over 400,000 people a year, 150,000 more people a year than Bush did.

Much of this increase in deportation has been done through the Secure Communities program, which forces local law enforcement officers to act as immigration agents when they arrest unauthorized immigrants."

"When Obama took office, less than one percent of all law enforcement jurisdictions participated in Secure Communities. Since then, the Obama administration has extended Secure Communities to over 97 percent of all such jurisdictions in the U.S. — a whopping 22,000 percent increase in enforcement reach."

"About one percent of legal American workers, according to audits, are falsely identified as illegal and unable to get a job — beginning a costly bureaucratic journey to correct information in government databases. The support for E-Verify by people who favor restricting immigration is even more mystifying because it fails to identify a majority of unauthorized immigrants."

"Currently, for most prospective immigrants, [a legal pathway] does not [exist]. More green cards for lower-skilled workers, a large and flexible guest worker program, or a combination of both will make effective enforcement possible — not faith in big-government immigration enforcement."