Intro by John Baden It is the exception that probes, not proves, the rule. I know of no logical system in which an exception to a general rule can “prove” the verity of that proposition, generality, principle, or rule. In this week’s FREE Insights, economist Michael Munger of Duke University describes an […]
Read MorePolitical Correctness: My Top Ten Universities are immersed in a sea of bias. Here are some indications. By Jane S. Shaw When commentator John Stossel was at ABC News, he said that talking to his colleagues about their bias was like talking to fish about water—“What water? It’s just what we live in.” Academia, too, lives […]
Read MoreSally Satel, MD, is a resident scholar at The American Enterprise Institute and a practicing psychiatrist and lecturer at Yale’s School of Medicine. I find her research and writing consistently well crafted and insightful. Sally has lectured in FREE’s programs for federal judges and law professors and received excellent reviews. Further, she is good […]
Read MoreWe Are Lucky to Live Here! Let’s welcome the 55+ to Gateway Village. Sunday morning I biked into Bozeman to meet a couple for brunch. During the 14-mile ride in, several lycra clad male riders easily and silently passed me. (I passed no one.) In town three walkers smiled and volunteered, “Aren’t we lucky to […]
Read MoreThis column is an exploratory essay and I welcome your suggestions. I’m thinking of creating the Greater Yellowstone Policy Salon Series, an adventure in intellectual and policy entrepreneurship. Let’s unpack this new idea and I hope influence change for the better. There is a huge potential for policy reform in nearly every arena of American […]
Read MoreTop 10 Ways to Talk about Libertarianism By David Boaz I give a lot of speeches and interviews about libertarianism. Often I have to begin simply by explaining what libertarianism is. Always I’m looking for effective ways to convey the essential libertarian ideas. So today I’m just setting out very briefly my Top 10 Ways to […]
Read MoreIn the now classic The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965) the author Mancur Olson wrote: “(O)nly a separate and ‘selective’ incentive will stimulate a rational individual in a latent group to act in a group-oriented way”; that is, members of a large group will not act in the […]
Read MoreMilton Friedman is one of my all time favorite economists, Tom Schelling another. Both won Nobel prizes and each contributed greatly to my understanding of how the world works. I knew Milton and Rose longer but Tom and Alice much better. While we live geographically far apart and the Friedman’s are gone, the Schelling’s remain […]
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Senators know that even unpaid entry-level work can be valuable. That’s why they make some of their employees work for nothing. President Obama called in his State of the Union for an increase in the minimum wage to $9 an hour by 2015, from $7.25, notwithstanding the evidence that it will increase unemployment among young, […]
Read MoreIntroduced here by Dr. John Baden A Tale of Two Cities, Boulder and Bozeman First, an admission: I like Boulder, Colorado–as a place to visit and from which to learn. I’ve been there several times and always enjoyed my visits. Many say Bozeman is like Boulder was 30 plus years ago. They mean that as […]
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