A Pleasant Surprise – Intro by John Baden, Chairman, FREE The Christmas season is surely a time to share good things. Here’s a letter to the Bozeman Chronicle posted on Monday, December 9th. It is one I enjoyed and from which I learned. One of the pleasures was to discover the clear thinking of […]
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Monday, Oct. 7, will mark the 100th anniversary of the opening of Henry Ford’s moving assembly line for producing the Model T. This innovative production system allowed Ford to double worker pay while cutting the price of his cars in half, making it possible, for the first time, for auto workers to buy the cars […]
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At a time when Americans are becoming increasingly dependent, here is a reminder of what liberty and independence really are. ________________________________________ On October 10, 1923, Nobel Prize–winning author Rudyard Kipling delivered the Rectorial Address to the students of St. Andrews University in Scotland. The title of his address was, “Independence.” For most Americans […]
Read MoreThis week’s FREE Insight is a summary of the talk that I gave yesterday (11/5/13) at Harvard and will also present at NYU Law tomorrow (11/7/13). The full paper can be found by clicking here. I find fiduciary trusts attractive arrangements for managing parks and wild lands, especially after October 1. National parks […]
Read MoreThere is only one 21st Century medical technology that has been lauded as able to save huge amounts of health care dollars. It is not the latest MRI technique, the most specialized robotic surgery or the newest cardiovascular drug. Rather, we often read and hear praise about the less glamorous Electronic Medical Record (EMR), also […]
Read MoreHere is my recommendation for understanding how the policy world works: read the “Weekend Edition” of the WSJ and skim The Economist. Curious people will quite naturally latch on to interesting and policy relevant articles. A few individuals have an intuitive appreciation of systems. My suggestion will foster their understanding by providing logical […]
Read MoreIf there is a single issue that most divides economists from non-economists, it’s the way they view prices. Economists view prices as creators of incentives for buyers and sellers. When prices change behavior changes. As a result, prices are mechanisms for determining the allocation of resources. If they are not allowed to perform this role […]
Read MoreThe summer is officially over, and with it, 22 years of FREE seminars for federal judges and religious leaders. This year we successfully hosted a diverse representation from both groups during our two weeklong seminars (July 15-19 and August 19-23). Below is an historical sketch leading to this success. It occurred neither by accident nor […]
Read MoreWhat we can all learn from the late Ronald Coase about protecting wetlands and wildlife. The recent death of Ronald Coase has given rise to an outpouring of praise about his contributions to the field of economics and his influence on the complex world of institutional politics. In my interactions with Coase, he was always cautious and diffident about […]
Read MoreIn their new book, America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century—Why America’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come,1 James C. Bennett and Michael J. Lotus predict America’s future by looking deep into the past. They argue that the unique nuclear-family orientation inherited from the Anglo-Saxon tradition creates a culture that ultimately will reject the model […]
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