The End of Unions? by Richard A. Epstein (Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow and member of the Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force) Defining Ideas: A Hoover Institution Journal What Michigan Governor Rick Snyder gets right and wrong about labor policy. The age of big government is now upon us. The question is how to […]
Read MoreI’m writing this on Groundhogs Day, February 2. Ramona and I are seven miles east of Ashton, Idaho near the Yellowstone Park border. YNP is an excellent place to explore parables of environmental stewardship so FREE’s work naturally features Yellowstone. Our July 15-19 conference, “Harmonizing Ecology, Prosperity, and Liberty”, will include a day in Yellowstone […]
Read MoreIntroduction by Dr. John A. Baden, Chairman, FREE Alcohol Poisoning According to Gallup, Congress began 2013 with an approval rating of 14%. Another firm, Public Policy Polling, found that Congress has only a 9% favorability rating, (one) below traffic jams. ” Congress is now less popular than root canals, NFL replacement referees, head lice, the rock […]
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James Buchanan Editorial of The New York Sun | January 9, 2013 http://www.nysun.com/editorials/james-buchanan/88144 Wikipedia Commons PUBLIC CHOICE: James Buchanan, who died today at the age of 93, gave us the tools to understand the expansion of government that is taking place in our time. The death of James Buchanan takes from us the man who, […]
Read MoreIntroduction by Dr. John Baden, Chairman, FREE Most contentious issues of public policy are nuanced and highly complex while carrying heavy emotional baggage. These ingredients foster error and acrimony. Intelligent people of good will, even those sharing similar values, can strongly disagree on policy prescriptions. This situation produces strong temptations to discredit and denigrate policy opponents. These characteristics are […]
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Introduced by Dr. John Baden, Chairman, FREE The first FREE Insight of 2013, “The Real Cliff”, is by Christopher DeMuth and was in The Weekly Standard on December 24, 2012. Chris explains the political logic that generated America’s huge debt and recurrent, soon to be replicated, trillion plus dollar deficits. He warns us that debt […]
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This article appeared in New York Post on December 3, 2012. Washington is consumed with wrangling over how to deal with the specter of big automatic tax hikes that will hit Jan. 1 when the Bush tax cuts expire. It’s also the day that the sequester kicks in, which is the budget-wonk term for an automatic process […]
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Introduction by John Baden: Ramona and I often are out of town on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, Election Day. Since we are likely to be gone, we are registered to receive “absentee ballots.” How easy they are; mark, sign, stuff into envelopes, put on a stamp, and we’ve done a small portion of […]
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Pete Geddes is the General Director of the American Prairie Reserve. This is an entrepreneurial foundation dedicated to restoring 3,000,000 acres of grassland and its wildlife and ranches. It’s their “American Serengeti”. Pete came to Bozeman from Missoula nearly 17 years ago after earning his graduate degree in forestry from the U of M. One […]
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What does ‘top-down economics’ really mean? “We can’t afford more top-down economics. What we need are policies that will grow and strengthen the middle class.” — Barack Obama “Top-down economics” is a hijacked phrase. Objectively, it should be the label assigned to rule-of-czar capitalism steered by government officials. Instead, campaign rhetoric has been assigning it […]
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