A recent survey found that 44 percent of Generation Z and 46 percent of Millennials are “obsessed with the idea of being rich.” While there is nothing wrong with the desire to be wealthy, obsessing over it can lead to some bad choices. That appears to be happening with younger adults, and not surprisingly, some…
This post is the seventh in a series. While I have long understood the importance of property rights, my understanding has reached a much deeper level over the past decade. During that time, I have written nearly one-thousand blog posts, OpEd articles, and policy papers. I have written three books and conducted dozens of workshops…
The title—“Government attacks free will when it assaults property rights”–of an opinion piece by Andrew P. Napolitano was intriguing. Unfortunately, while the former judge presented two false alternatives of dictatorship, he said virtually nothing about free will and its relationship to property rights. I will correct that oversight. The right to property means the freedom…
Gresham’s Law is an economic principle that states, “Bad money drives out good money.” Wikipedia explains the principle as it applies to money: For example, if there are two forms of commodity money in circulation, which are accepted by law as having similar face value, the more valuable commodity will gradually disappear from circulation As…
Knowledge is not a series of random, isolated ideas. Knowledge is, as Leonard Peikoff puts it, “an organization or integration of interconnected elements, each relevant to the others.” That integration is the context, and context matters. If we fail to consider all of the relevant facts we are guilty of dropping context. Important information does…
Merriam-Webster states that an infodemic typically refers to a rapid and far-reaching spread of both accurate and inaccurate information about something, such as a disease. As facts, rumors, and fears mix and disperse, it becomes difficult to learn essential information about an issue. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, Americans have been overwhelmed with…
It is a sad statement about the state of our culture when a governor apologizes for speaking the truth. Talking about a dramatic increase in theft from railroads, California Gov. Gavin Newsome recently said, This is not one-off. This is organized theft. These are organized gangs of people that are coming out. In response to…
In the late 1990s, a campaign began to “ban the box.” The goal of the campaign was to prohibit employers from asking about criminal convictions on employment applications. The campaign has since been expanded to prohibit landlords from asking about criminal convictions on rental applications. Fundamentally, the campaign wants us to pretend that it didn’t…
As inflation continues to push prices higher and higher, conservatives are stumbling over themselves to blame Biden and Congressional Democrats. While the current regime certainly deserves criticism, placing all of the blame for inflation on Democrats is intellectually dishonest and an attempt to inflate the truth. Conservatives conveniently ignore the fact that Trump signed the…
It has become increasingly popular to add adjectives to “justice.” This has led to “social justice,” “racial justice,” environmental justice,” and now, “housing justice.” As an example, Casey Dawkins, Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Maryland, claims that we must develop a new understanding of justice as it applies to housing….
This week, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, a body established by the World Health Organization, released a paper that argues that “global health has been ‘left hostage’ to Big Pharma.” Such a claim equates the actions of pharmaceutical companies with the actions of kidnappers. This is a grossly unjust accusation. A kidnapper…
Last week, a reader asked me to expand on a remark made in a post about those who are anti-authority: Many of those opposed to getting vaccinated call those who are getting vaccinated “sheeple”—mindless individuals who do as they are told by public authorities. The underlying attitude is one of anti-authority and pseudo-independence. In principle,…