Some of my columns are generated by suggestions from readers. Most recently, I received one from a woman with whom I share a class at The Ridge. She is a cashier at a Bozeman grocery store that nearly all know and love. She suggested a column on obesity, poverty, and proposed health care reform. As […]
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I observed the April 15th Tea Party by accident from a barbershop window. My second viewing, however, was intentional. I rode in from Gateway, met Ramona, and we walked my bike through the large and civil crowd. I was indeed pleased to be there. Many letters have commented on the Tea Party phenomenon. I’ll provide […]
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“The four most dangerous words in investing are ‘This time it’s different.’” —Sir John Templeton Every decade or so since 1900, there has been a run of prosperity that detaches people’s common sense from financial realities. This generates widespread faith in a “new era” of ever-escalating wealth. If we’ll be richer next year, why not […]
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Last Saturday, while preparing to celebrate Independence Eve, I received two letters requesting political support. One was from Dan Choi, an Army Lieutenant who was standing trial for speaking three truthful words, “I am gay.” He is an infantry officer, an Iraq combat veteran, and a West Point graduate with a degree in Arabic. He […]
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In his speech to the American Medical Association, President Obama stated, “Today, we are spending…almost 50 percent more per person than the next most costly nation.” The sophisticated listener understood the implications of Obama’s message: things that can’t go on won’t. Our medical costs, now nearly one-fifth of current GNP, twice that of food, can’t […]
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I have an architect friend who knows a great deal about American cars. He is interested in racing and auto craft, and specifically, designing for performance. Naturally, he laments the demise of the American automotive industry. He asked me why it happened and what will follow. Here’s what I told him. Detroit’s crackup is no […]
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I find the smell of roasting pork a great and powerful magnet. A neighbor and his family were recently roasting half a hog for a graduation party, and I was pulled forcefully toward it. The hog was cooking on a remarkable machine, surely the finest barbeque I’ve seen. It was made one winter by the […]
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Religion was central to my early work in political economy. I lived among the Hutterite Brethren in the late 1960s, visiting and staying with two-dozen Hutterite colonies in the Northern Plains. My goal was to explain what conditions enabled a communist society to survive, and in their case even thrive. This fieldwork occasionally involved driving […]
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“Things Counterintuitive” is the theme of FREE’s first summer conference. We have invited a select group of economists, mathematicians, free-range intellectuals, and a magician to explore interesting and important counterintuitive truths about nature and human behavior. Much human behavior is given by nature, immune to pious pronouncements. It is irresponsibly naïve to ignore this reality. […]
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I intend this column to be helpful advice to women. It’s about a sad subject, the plight of pine trees in our urban, suburban, and rural landscape and the casualties that follow. Mountain pine beetles have hit our trees. These creatures attack most pines, particularly ponderosa, lodgepole, and Scotch; trees we treasure around our homes […]
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