Walter E. Williams from Creators Syndicate

Economic Chaos Ahead for 02/08/2012

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

Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicar ...

Updated: Wed Feb 08, 2012

]]>

Obama's Racial Politics for 02/01/2012

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

There's been a heap of criticism placed upon President Barack Obama's domestic policies that have promoted government intrusion and prolonged our fiscal crisis and his foreign policies that have emboldened our enemies. Any criticism of Obama pales in comparison with what might be said about the American people who voted him in to the nation's highest office.

Obama's presidency represents ...

Updated: Wed Feb 01, 2012

]]>

Schools of Education for 01/25/2012

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

Larry Sand's article "No Wonder Johnny (Still) Can't Read" — written for The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, based in Raleigh, N.C. — blames schools of education for the decline in America's education. Education professors drum into students that they should not "drill and kill" or be the "sage on the stage" but instead be the &quo ...

Updated: Wed Jan 25, 2012

]]>

Presidential Nonsense for 01/18/2012

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

Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, "We can't go back to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics." Throughout my professional career as an economist, I've never come across the theory of "you're-on-your-own economics." I'm guessing what the president means by — and finds offensive in — "you're-on-your- ...

Updated: Wed Jan 18, 2012

]]>

In Greed I Trust for 01/11/2012

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

Last week's column started off asking: "What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done?" The answer is that human greed is what gets wonderful things done. I wasn't talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I was talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves.

Think about g ...

Updated: Wed Jan 11, 2012

]]>

I Love Greed for 01/04/2012

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It's really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it's human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I'm talking about people trying to get as mu ...

Updated: Wed Jan 04, 2012

]]>

Gullible Americans for 12/28/2011

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman has called for states to mandate a total ban on cellphone usage while driving. She has also encouraged electronics manufacturers — via recommendations to the CTIA-The Wireless Association and the Consumer Electronics Association — to develop features that "disable the functions of portable electronic devices within ...

Updated: Wed Dec 28, 2011

]]>

China Trade: Myths vs. Reality for 12/21/2011

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Republicans and Democrats, liberals as well as conservatives, have bought into anti-Chinese trade demagoguery. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that tariffs against China are a "key part of our 'Make It in America' agenda." During his 2010 campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called his tea party-backed Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, "a foreign w ...

Updated: Wed Dec 21, 2011

]]>

Economic Fairness for 12/14/2011

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The most prevalent theme in President Barack Obama's Dec. 6 Osawatomie, Kan., speech was the need for greater "fairness." In fact, though the president never defined the term fair(ness), he used it 15 times. Explaining his new hero, Teddy Roosevelt, Obama said: "But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you can from whomever you c ...

Updated: Wed Dec 14, 2011

]]>

Free To Die? for 12/07/2011

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column titled "Free to Die" (9/15/2011), pointed out that back in 1980, his late fellow Nobel laureate Milton Friedman lent his voice to the nation's shift to the political right in his famous 10-part TV series, "Free To Choose." Nowadays, Krugman says, "'free to choose' has become 'free to die.'" He ...

Updated: Wed Dec 07, 2011

]]>

Ending Income Inequality? for 11/30/2011

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Benefiting from a hint from an article titled "Is Harry Potter Making You Poorer?", written by my colleague Dr. John Goodman, president of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, I've come up with an explanation and a way to end income inequality in America, possibly around the world. Joanne Rowling was a welfare mother in Edinburgh, Scotland. All that has changed. As th ...

Updated: Wed Nov 30, 2011

]]>

Should the Rich Be Condemned? for 11/23/2011

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb, the phonograph, the DC motor and other items in everyday use and became wealthy by doing so. Thomas Watson founded IBM and became rich through his company's contribution to the computation revolution. Lloyd Conover, while in the employ of Pfizer, created the antibiotic tetracycline. Though Edison, Watson, Conover and Pfizer became wealthy, whatever ...

Updated: Wed Nov 23, 2011

]]>

Poverty in America? for 11/16/2011

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

According to CBS News, "the number of people in the U.S. living in poverty in 2010 rose for the fourth year in a row, representing the largest number of Americans in poverty in the 52 years since such estimates have been published by the U.S. Census Bureau." MSNBC said, "The U.S. poverty rate remains among the highest in the developed world." Let's look at a few poverty fact ...

Updated: Wed Nov 16, 2011

]]>

Ignorance Exploited for 11/09/2011

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Many Wall Street occupiers are echoing the Communist Party USA's call to "Save the nation! Tax corporations! Tax the rich!" There are other Americans, on both the left and the right — for example, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner — who call for reductions in corporate taxes. But the University of California, Berkeley's pretend economist Robert Reich di ...

Updated: Wed Nov 09, 2011

]]>

Democracy Is Impossible for 11/02/2011

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

After Moammar Gadhafi's downfall as Libya's tyrannical ruler, politicians and "experts" in the U.S. and elsewhere, including French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, are saying that his death marked the end of 42 years of tyranny and the beginning of democracy in Libya. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Gadhafi's death represented an opportunity for Libya to make a peaceful and responsible t ...

Updated: Wed Nov 02, 2011

]]>

Profits Are for People for 10/26/2011

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are demanding "people before profits" — as if profit motivation were the source of mankind's troubles — when it's often the absence of profit motivation that's the true villain.

First, let's get both the definition and magnitude of profits out of the way. Profits represent the residual claim earned by entrepreneurs. They're what ...

Updated: Wed Oct 26, 2011

]]>

Pitting Us Against Each Other for 10/19/2011

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have led increasingly successful efforts to pit Americans against one another through the politics of hate and envy. Attacking CEO salaries, the president — last year during his Midwest tour — said, "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."

Let's look at CEO salaries, but before doing so, let's look at ...

Updated: Wed Oct 19, 2011

]]>

It's Hard To Be a Racist for 10/12/2011

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Years ago it was easy to be a racist. All you had to be was a white person using some of the racial epithets that are routinely used in song and everyday speech by many of today's blacks. Or you had to chant "two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate" when a black student showed up for admission to your high school or college. Of course, there was that dressing up in a hooded ...

Updated: Wed Oct 12, 2011

]]>

Social Security Disaster for 10/05/2011

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Politicians who are principled enough to point out the fraud of Social Security, referring to it as a lie and Ponzi scheme, are under siege. Acknowledgment of Social Security's problems is not the same as calling for the abandonment of its recipients. Instead, it's a call to take actions now, while there's time to avert a disaster. Let's look at it.

The term was derived from the scheme c ...

Updated: Wed Oct 05, 2011

]]>

The Financial Mess in the US and Europe for 09/28/2011

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

What's the common thread between Europe's financial mess, particularly among the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), and the financial mess in the U.S.? That question could be more easily answered if we asked instead: What's necessary to cure the financial mess in Europe and the U.S.? If European governments and the U.S. Congress ceased the practice of giving people what they ha ...

Updated: Wed Sep 28, 2011

]]>