Statism Stands against Free Trade and Free Association

2023-09-20

On Friday, September 15, 12,700 members of the United Auto Workers union (UAW) walked off the job at plants owned by the “Big Three” automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (which owns Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram). The walkout marked the beginning of a series of long-expected targeted strikes aiming to give the UAW leverage as it renegotiates contracts with the three companies.
The strike is grounded in frustrations over worker compensation. Union members and their supporters point to high profits and CEO pay at the Big Three and compare them to stagnant wages and rising costs of living among autoworkers. They feel like they’re being ripped off.
And they’re right. Like the rest of the working class, autoworkers are being ripped off. Decades of interventionism have built an economic

2023-09-18

The fundamental problem with purchasing protection from the boogeyman is that it’s impossible to assess the quality of your purchase: If the boogeyman doesn’t attack, it appears your protection succeeded. If he does, it appears you needed to purchase even more. And that, dear readers, is why the military cannot be controlled by civilians or anyone else, for that matter. In the most basic sense, people without guns cannot control people with them; everything else is merely a self-deception.
Take, for example, the recent covid crisis. Imagine you are a time traveler and you have replaced Donald Trump as president, so you have the benefit of knowing everything that has happened in the last few years. Could you do anything differently? Would you? That is, imagine your military advisors tell

2023-06-20

There is a sea change in how society views false accusations of sexual abuse. And it’s about time.
The lawsuit John C. Depp, II v. Amber Laura Heard (2022) points to this transformation. Depp and Heard sued each other for defamation with “actual malice” over public accusations of domestic violence (DV) during their marriage; Heard also sued Depp’s attorney for making false statements. Unlike an earlier case brought by Depp in the United Kingdom, the American jury found unanimously in his favor and he was awarded $5 million in punitive damages and $10 million in compensatory ones, although the punitive damages were later reduced to $350,000 due to Virginia state law. Heard was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages from the attorney and $0 in punitive damages from Depp. A settlement was

2023-06-20

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.—Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan
California continues to attack businesses and entrepreneurial freedom. Leviathan has awakened, this time with Assembly Bill 257, promoting a state-controlled trade union for all restaurant workers.
Current United States secretary of labor Marty Walsh has left and become head of the National Hockey League’s players union, perhaps to help in the league’s diversity, equity, and inclusion and pride initiatives. Joe Biden has nominated Julie Su as Walsh’s replacement, appointed by Biden as deputy labor secretary in 2021. She received Senate subcommittee approval on April 27 and will go to the floor for a full vote, and opposition is

2023-06-19

Since 1960, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 78 times, according to Bloomberg. The process of increasing the debt limit has become so regular that markets barely worry about it. Furthermore, as the 2011 debt ceiling crisis showed, the impact on asset prices happened mostly in emerging economies. In 2011, Turkish and Indian debt were the most negatively impacted, while Treasuries rose.
Politicians believe that raising the debt ceiling is a social policy and that debt does not matter. Until it does. United States debt to GDP is now 123.4% and the risk of losing confidence on U.S. treasuries as the lowest risk asset is exceedingly high.
The problem in the United States budget is evident in mandatory and discretionary spending. Focusing all the attention on discretionary spending does not