Christmas and New Years Greetings We believe Christmas is an excellent time to remember friends and count blessings. We also plan FREE’s new years projects during this holiday season. Our work in 2015 will continue to advance constructive thinking on responsible liberty, modest prosperity, and ecology. These autumn and winter photos suggest FREE’s focus; agricultural […]
Read MoreMy colleagues and I have devoted four decades to the important mission of showing people who care about parks, wildlife, wildlands, and water how to foster their conservation goals. We have explained the causes of problems with existing management. These manifold problems rarely result from corruption or gross incompetence of agency personnel. Rather, these problems […]
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Next year is FREE’s thirtieth anniversary. I founded it to combine ecology with responsible prosperity and liberty. Much of our work has been with federal judges and academic, business, and environmental leaders. It is a rare privilege to combine political economy with practical ranch and wildlife work. Ramona and I are indeed lucky. I hope […]
Read MoreBoth Ramona and I have been traveling for several weeks and are home for Thanksgiving. She was in Cuba marveling at how a socialized economy operates (poorly). Meanwhile I was in DC and the Research Triangle of North Carolina meeting with economists, friends, and relatives. I wanted to better understand how to flip the Green […]
Read MoreTwo Kinds of “Climate Deniers” One of the most serious accusations “progressives” make against a person’s intelligence and character is labeling someone a “climate denier”. A “denier” is a person who rejects the media’s prevailing view on global warming and now, climate change. The tribe of deniers is insecure. It’s mainly comprised of “clingers”, those […]
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Culture, Community, and Civility: Code of the (New) West Living here is a great blessing for Ramona and me. We greatly appreciate the wonderful natural, cultural, and prosperous environment of the Gallatin Valley. Even these stellar qualities are sometimes trumped by seeing people care for one another. Our community has culture of civility and caring–even […]
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Ramona and I have been here a long time. The old timers who saw us as newcomers in the 1960s and 70s are dead. For the others we are part of the landscape. We have seen huge changes in perceptions of the Bozeman area and the Gallatin Valley. When we arrived people outside our region seldom […]
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Few professors go to economics from anthropology, as did I. An anthropology background affects how one sees the world. It places far more emphasis on culture. Most decisions are based on information and incentives. Culture creates powerful incentives, ones often far more powerful than money. As Nobel Prize winning economist Doug North explained, culture constrains […]
Read MoreFREE is preparing for our August 25-29 seminar. We designed it for Article III federal judges and their clerks. This program will feature a field trip to Yellowstone Park. We will have presentations from the current Park Superintendent, a retired superintendent of Yellowstone, and natural scientists specializing in wildlands ecology. Ramona and I have been […]
Read MoreFREE fosters liberty, prosperity, and ecology by advocating reforms that recognize the importance of each. Our focus is the “romance” ring of the environmental arena; parks, wildlife, water, and wildlands. The focus holds in our academic and agricultural lives. Four decades ago we chose to live on a ranch near Gallatin Gateway. It is the […]
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