Madison Protest: Unions Are Angry - But Wisconsin Should Go Even Further | Chris Edwards | Cato Institute: Commentary

Madison Protest: Unions Are Angry - But Wisconsin Should Go Even Further | Chris Edwards | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Unions certainly have free speech rights to voice their opinions about public policy. But collective bargaining gives unions the exclusive right to speak for covered workers, many of whom may disagree with the views of the monopoly union. Thus, collective bargaining is inconsistent with the right to freedom of association."

The Unvarnished Truth about Un-American TSA | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Unvarnished Truth about Un-American TSA | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "even if terrorists crashed a plane a week, 'a person who took one flight a month for a year would have only a 1-in-135,000 chance of being killed in a hijacking — a trivial risk compared with the annual 1-in-6,000 odds of being killed in a car.'"

West Exacerbates Libyans' Suffering | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

West Exacerbates Libyans' Suffering | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "One still can argue that the policy is justified. But self-proclaimed humanitarian hawks hate to admit that it is war they are making. The mere threat of intervention is supposed to be enough: Muammar Qaddafi was just supposed to 'go.'

Still, there's nothing to worry about. Only bad guys die and only good consequences occur in humanitarian wars. When conservatives like George W. Bush bomb another country, it necessarily is a costly disaster. When liberals like Barack Obama do so, it necessarily is a grand success."

Governors' Letter Shows Why Medicaid Block Grants Are Necessary | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary

Governors' Letter Shows Why Medicaid Block Grants Are Necessary | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The governors write that block grants 'would shift costs and risk to states.' In reality, the matching-grant system these governors seek to preserve is a massive cost-shifting scheme. Block grants would reduce this phenomenon.

For every additional dollar a high-income state spends on its Medicaid program, the federal government sends the state one matching dollar. Low-income states get as much as $4 from Washington for each additional dollar they spend.

Therefore, every time a governor expands his or her state's Medicaid program, the federal government's system of matching grants effectively shifts 50 to 80 percent of the expansion's price tag to taxpayers in other states.

The same is true in reverse. If governors tolerate waste, fraud and abuse, the matching-grant system shifts 50 to 80 percent of the cost to taxpayers in other states."

"Under block grants, states would keep 100 percent of the savings from rooting out fraud and abuse, which would encourage states to spend their Medicaid dollars wisely, reduce the cost of the program, and enable states to do more with fewer resources."

Why We Must Freeze the Debt Limit | Jagadeesh Gokhale | Cato Institute: Commentary

Why We Must Freeze the Debt Limit | Jagadeesh Gokhale | Cato Institute: Commentary: "A temporarily frozen debt limit could instead signal U.S. lawmakers' resolve to get our fiscal house in order. It may even reassure investors about long-term U.S. economic prospects."

Uncle Sam: Busted - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily

Uncle Sam: Busted - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily: "As Lew Rockwell has said of any would-be budget hawks, tell me how much you want to cut spending this year — not ten years from now when someone else will be in office."

"So under the Ryan plan's own rosy forecast, the federal budget won't actually be balanced for almost three decades. Does that strike most readers as 'savage' budget cutting that recognizes the fiscal emergency upon us?"

"but the pattern is the same: the difficult choices only affect future politicians. The Republicans are not daring to tell voting seniors that their benefits will be cut today."

Fear the Boom, Not the Bust - Patrick Barron - Mises Daily

Fear the Boom, Not the Bust - Patrick Barron - Mises Daily: "it is very difficult to invest safely in such [a monetary inflation] environment, because government will expropriate resources. Your challenge is to avoid investments that appear to be sound under normal financial analysis but are more likely to suffer losses due to the distorted economic environment in which you must operate. So, here are some guidelines."

"Avoid those industries that are most capital intensive"

"Be very careful investing in the expansion of industries that are most removed temporally, meaning further away in time, from generating revenue."

"Avoid industries that depend upon increased money creation or some form of government coercion for their existence."

"Avoid investments that catch the eye of government and environmentalists, such as natural-resource exploration companies. Also avoid investments that governments might tax, regulate, or confiscate."

"Do not base investment decisions on tax credits, subsidies, and the like"

"Do not rely upon government oversight agencies or private rating agencies"

"Instead of looking at the rising price of gold in money terms, we should be looking at the falling value of various types of money in terms of gold."

"Anchoring the monetary base in gold today would mean a dollar price of gold of almost $8,000 per ounce. Anchoring M1 would mean over $7,000 per ounce, and anchoring M2 would mean almost $34,000 per ounce."

The Moral Imperative of the Market - Friedrich A. Hayek - Mises Daily

The Moral Imperative of the Market - Friedrich A. Hayek - Mises Daily: "Thus the whole economic order rested on the fact that by using prices as a guide, or as signals, we were led to serve the demands and enlist the powers and capacities of people of whom we knew nothing."

"the basic foundation of our civilization and our wealth is a system of signals which informs us, however imperfectly, of the effects of millions of events which occur in the world, to which we have to adapt ourselves and about which we may have no direct information."

"If it is true that prices are signals which enable us to adapt our activities to unknown events and demands, it is evidently nonsense to believe that we can control prices. You cannot improve a signal if you do not know what it signals."

"If prices are to serve as an effective guide to what people ought to do, you cannot reward people for what are or were their good intentions. You must allow prices to be determined so as to tell people where they can make the best contribution to the rest of society — and unfortunately the capacity of making good contributions to one's fellows is not distributed according to any principles of justice."

"the world's population has grown to a size where it can be fed only by adhering to a market system"

The Science Behind College-Football Helmet Stickers | Playbook

The Science Behind College-Football Helmet Stickers | Playbook: "The researchers found that when the mug was the prize, the men in the group — but not the women — fought harder to win, so they more readily threw in all their cash during the game, vying for the highest possible ratings from their teammates. And when competing for the mug, the males cooperated more with each other, instead of plotting and scheming against the rest of the group.

Pan thinks the findings show that the males viewed the mug as a displayable trophy to the rest of the group, and their desire to win the affection of their peers spurred them to shift their behavior away from self-interest toward a strategy that was better aligned for team success."

The Weak Dollar Problem | Steve H. Hanke | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Weak Dollar Problem | Steve H. Hanke | Cato Institute: Commentary: "For each 1% decline in the dollar against the euro, there was on average a 0.5% increase in the price of oil. The biggest single contributor to oil price increases in recent months is not located in Libya, but at the headquarters of the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C."