John Stossel from Creators Syndicate

Making Life Fair for 05/16/2012

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

When my wife was a liberal, she complained that libertarian reasoning is coldhearted. Since markets produce winners and losers — and many losers did nothing wrong — market competition is cruel. It must seem so. President Obama used the word "fair" in his last State of the Union address nine times.

We are imprinted to prefer a world that is "fair." Our clo ...

Updated: Wed May 16, 2012

]]>

Creating a Risk-Free World for 05/09/2012

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

A child leaving home alone for the first time takes a risk. So does the entrepreneur who opens a new business. I no more want government to prevent us from doing these things than I want it to keep us in padded cells.

Everyone has a different tolerance for risk. One person takes out a second mortgage to start a business. Another thinks that sounds nerve-racking, if not insane. Neither p ...

Updated: Wed May 09, 2012

]]>

Keeping Nature Exactly as Is ... Forever for 05/02/2012

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Keeping Nature Exactly as Is ... Forever

The human brain is torn between simple intuition and the more complex hard work of figuring out the unintended consequences of any policy. Who doesn't like thinking about trees and greenery and happy animals? Who doesn't want to see steps taken to protect those things, all else being equal? But all else is not equal. Civilization doesn't work when ...

Updated: Wed May 02, 2012

]]>

The Assault on Food for 04/25/2012

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Assault on Food

Instinct tells us to fear poison. If our ancestors were not cautious about what they put in their mouths, they would not have survived long enough to produce us.

Unfortunately, a side effect of that cautious impulse is that whenever someone claims that some chemical — or food ingredient, like fat — is a menace, we are primed to believe it. That mak ...

Updated: Wed Apr 25, 2012

]]>

The Economy Needs No Conductor for 04/18/2012

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

We spend too much time waiting for orders — and money — from Washington.

The collapse of the housing bubble gave politicians a license to do what they wanted to do all along: spend. The usual checks on extravagance, weak as they are, were washed away. Budgets? We'll worry about that later. Inflation? We'll worry about that later.

As I point out in my brand new book, &q ...

Updated: Wed Apr 18, 2012

]]>

Can Government Do Anything Well? for 04/11/2012

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

I'm suspicious of superstitions, like astrology or the belief that "green jobs will fix the environment and the economy." I understand the appeal of such beliefs. People crave simple answers and want to believe that some higher power determines our fates.

The most socially destructive superstition of all is the intuitively appealing belief that problems are best solved by gover ...

Updated: Wed Apr 11, 2012

]]>

Let's Give the Fed Some Competition for 04/04/2012

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Pssst. Want to buy some Stossels? They're my own currency with my face on them.

Why should you trust them?

Because I promise to redeem them for gold. And I'm reliable. I have money in the bank and a job that brings in more than I spend.

By contrast, the politicians who back American currency run an unsustainable deficit.

The Federal Reserve prints so much money that ...

Updated: Wed Apr 04, 2012

]]>

Job Killers for 03/28/2012

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Politicians say they "create jobs." In fact, only the private sector generates the information needed to create real, productive jobs.

Since this current post-recession job recovery is the slowest in 80 years, you'd think that even know-it-all politicians would want to sweep away the labyrinth of government regulations that hinders job creation. Successful job creators like Dal ...

Updated: Wed Mar 28, 2012

]]>

What Is Fair? for 03/21/2012

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

President Obama says he want to make society more fair. Advocates of big government believe fairness means taking from rich people and giving to others: poor people; or people who do things politicians approve of, like making "green" energy equipment (Solyndra); or old people (even rich ones) through Social Security and Medicare.

The idea that government can "make life fai ...

Updated: Wed Mar 21, 2012

]]>

Complex Societies Need Simple Laws for 03/14/2012

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

"If you have 10,000 regulations," Winston Churchill said, "you destroy all respect for law."

He was right. But Churchill never imagined a government that would add 10,000 year after year. That's what we have in America. We have 160,000 pages of rules from the feds alone. States and localities have probably doubled that. We have so many rules that legal specialists can ...

Updated: Wed Mar 14, 2012

]]>

Vulture Capitalism for 03/07/2012

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Now that Mitt Romney is likely to be the Republican nominee, we can expect new attacks on his "vulture capitalism." That's how Rick Perry characterized his private equity work. Newt Gingrich's supporters ran an ad about Romney's firm, Bain Capital, that said, "Their greed was only matched by their willingness to do anything to make millions in profits."

Give me a brea ...

Updated: Wed Mar 07, 2012

]]>

Prohibition for 02/29/2012

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Unlike Bill Clinton, President Obama admits he inhaled!. "Frequently," he said. "That was the point."

People laugh when politicians talk about their drug use. The audience laughed during a 2003 CNN Democratic presidential primary debate when John Kerry, John Edwards and Howard Dean admitted smoking weed.

Yet those same politicians oversee a cruel system that no ...

Updated: Wed Feb 29, 2012

]]>

I Tried to Open a Lemonade Stand for 02/24/2012

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Want to open a business in America? It isn't easy.

In Midway, Ga., a 14-year-old girl and her 10-year-old sister sold lemonade from their front yard. Two police officers bought some. But the next day, different officers ordered them to close their stand.

Their father went to city hall to try to find out why. The clerk laughed and said she didn't know. Eventually, Police Chief Kell ...

Updated: Fri Feb 24, 2012

]]>

Politicians Fiddle While Fiscal Crisis Looms for 02/22/2012

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Imagine this family budget:

Last year, you earned $24,700. But you spent $37,900, incurring $13,300 in debt, and you were already $153,500 in debt.

So you say, "I promise I'll spend $300 less this year!"

Anyone can see that your cutback is pathetic and that you need to spend much less.

Yet if you add eight zeroes, that's America's budget.

Th ...

Updated: Wed Feb 22, 2012

]]>

Never Trust Government Numbers for 02/15/2012

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

President Obama said in his State of the Union speech, "We've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings."

That was reassuring.

The new budget he released this week promises $4 trillion in "deficit reduction" — about half in tax increases and half in spending cuts. But like most politicians, Obama misleads.

Cato Institute economist ...

Updated: Wed Feb 15, 2012

]]>

Government Can't Make Us Happy for 02/08/2012

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson called the pursuit of happiness an unalienable right. This was a radical idea. For most of history, most people didn't think much about pursuing happiness. They were too busy just trying to survive.

Then came the liberal revolution based on the idea of individual freedom. Only then did they start thinking that happiness might be possib ...

Updated: Wed Feb 08, 2012

]]>

Policing the World for 02/01/2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

With an election approaching and at least some Americans upset about irresponsible spending, the president has finally expressed a political interest in cutting something. He says the Pentagon will spend "only" $525 billion next year. That's slightly less than the current $531 billion.

A cut is good, but this will barely dent the deficit. We could save much more if America assu ...

Updated: Wed Feb 01, 2012

]]>

The Real State of the Union for 01/25/2012

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Has Barack Obama learned nothing in three years? During his State of the Union address, he promised "a blueprint for an economy." But economies are crushed by blueprints. An economy is really nothing more than people participating in an unfathomably complex spontaneous network of exchanges aimed at improving their material circumstances. It can't even be diagrammed, much less planned. ...

Updated: Wed Jan 25, 2012

]]>

Don't Trust Your Instincts for 01/18/2012

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Simple answers are so satisfying: Green jobs will fix the economy. Stimulus will create jobs. Charity helps people more than commerce. Everyone should vote.

Well, all those instinctive solutions are wrong. As Friedrich Hayek pointed out in "The Fatal Conceit," it's a problem that in our complex, extended economy, we rely on instincts developed during our ancestors' existence in ...

Updated: Wed Jan 18, 2012

]]>

Champions of Freedom for 01/11/2012

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

It's election season, and so once again people look for heroes. Is Ron Paul one? Maybe. He's fought a long, lonely battle to limit the power of government. As government grows, I yearn for champions of freedom who fight back. Rep. Paul has done that.

But it's a mistake to look for heroes in politics. It's too ugly a business. My heroes are people like Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek and Ayn ...

Updated: Wed Jan 11, 2012

]]>