From Foundation for Economic Education
"The Goal Is Freedom: Theory and Crisis" by Sheldon Richman

If you are a glutton for cable news-talk shows, you know it's been little more than a parade of 'experts' declaring the absolute imperative of government bailouts. Many of these experts preface their remarks by saying how much they hate the idea of government intervention to save business from its mistakes. 'I'm a free-market, small-government advocate, but ....' Jack Welch, formerly head of government-contractor GE, and columnist Lawrence Kudlow are among many who have said things like that. Since they spoke on television programs, I can't quote them verbatim, but the tenor of their remarks is that the free market is great when things are going well, but this is an emergency and we don't have the luxury of theory.

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From LewRockwell.com
"How Do We Get to Anarchist Utopia?" by Wilton D. Alston

I don't want to be stolen from, enslaved, or unfairly imprisoned. I don't want to steal from anyone, enslave anyone, or imprison anyone, particularly for a behavior, that while possibly unwise, infringes upon no one else. I believe in private property. Just because you and a couple of other folks supposedly voted to steal that property from me doesn't change the morality of the action. (If it does, then this whole discussion is moot.)

If we start there -- with the argument from morality -- I'm willing to take my chances that the polar bears, the Rain Forest, and the planet will survive just fine. Given the amounts of my own money and time I've voluntarily invested, I'm also pretty confident that the poor and the sick will be cared for as well. I'll even admit that some issues with which mankind might be faced in the future might be large enough to require cooperation. Here's the thing. Cooperation doesn't come out of the barrel of a gun. Is it too much to ask that the self-righteous busy bodies spend only their own money (or money given voluntarily to them) and stop making war on the rest of us?

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From Reason Magazine


From AntiWar.com
"Watching Ukraine" by Justin Raimondo

During the heyday of the 'Orange Revolution,' Western money and other aid flowed into Yushchenko's party coffers, and also in the direction of his ally at the time, Yulia Tymoshenko, the 'gas princess' whose anti-Russian rhetoric and fiery campaigning style made her the co-star in this Western-sponsored narrative of 'We Beat the Russkies -- On Their Own Doorstep!' Now, however, Tymoshenko has turned against her former ally, blocked his power-grabbing schemes, and defied his order to dissolve parliament and call new elections.

Significantly, the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko alliance was finally wrecked on the shoals of a foreign policy question: what stance to take in regard to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Yushchenko, who knows what side his bread is buttered on, unhesitatingly supported his fellow 'revolutionist,' Mikheil Saakashvili, whose reckless military assault on the defenseless Ossetian capital city of Tskhinvali was quickly beaten back by the Russians. Tymoshenko, on the other hand, took a neutral stance, averring that Ukraine has too many of its own problems to get involved in Georgia's internal political troubles.

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From Financial Sense
"The Party is Over" by Peter Schiff

The intention of all these daily federal interventions is to keep the credit spigots open so Americans can go even deeper into debt to buy more stuff they can't actually afford. This should be clear enough to anyone who listens to what our leaders are actually saying. When speaking about the need for an even larger fiscal stimulus package, Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said, 'We have to prop up consumption.' He has it backwards. The government has been propping up consumption for far too long, and the best thing they can do now is remove the props so spending can be replaced by savings.

... Were the government to allow market forces to work, Americans would now have to pay cash for their consumption. That would mean no instant credit for new cars, plasma TVs, appliances, consumer electronics, clothing, furniture, etc. Unless buyers actually had the cash in their checking accounts these purchases would have to be deferred. From an economic perspective this is precisely what the doctor ordered. But for an economy based 72 percent on consumer spending, the medicine will go down hard.

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