Oliver Twist is alive today and recovering in a hospital in Beijing. The Dickensian saga of 13-year-old Xu Qian Qian fills one column on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for December 7, 2004 and, with color photos and maps, a full page inside Section A. Here is documented the story of one of the millions of disabled children in China,
Welfare/warfare states such as today’s America are distinguished by the ever-tightening grip the collective exercises over the course of their citizens’ lives, as the expression goes, from the cradle to the grave. Such governments are also distinguished, of course, by their propensity to expend not only the interests and energies of their people
Enron : $1 billion write-down of retained earnings, followed by $618 million quarterly loss. 21,000 put out of work in ensuing bankruptcy. CFO Andrew Fastow sentenced to ten years in prison. Jeff Skilling and Kenneth Lay arrested and charged with federal crimes. Worldcom : $10 billion inflation of profits through failure to record expenses. CFO
Cuba and Taiwan, a world apart but both on the 23 rd parallel, are thorns in the side of the mainland behemoth off whose southeastern coast each lies. Like the behemoths themselves, the islands have much in common, and great differences. The situation each presents today speaks volumes about the temper and nature of its dominant neighbor’s
After years of grueling war, victory must be close at hand. America’s fighting men and women have defended the flag and advanced freedom’s cause on battlefields across the globe in their hundreds of thousands, and of these, thousands have rendered their last, full measure of devotion. Congress has placed the economy on a war footing with annual
The Group of Eight finance ministers will meet this week in Perthshire, Scotland to address various weighty financial decisions that their governments have expropriated from the more-capable hands of their citizens. Thanks in part to the globally choreographed performances of dozens of famous, caring, and would-be-famous-and-caring rock stars, the
President Bush tells us to drive less and limit trips to only the essentials, while the EPA’s EnergyStar program is urging us all to “change a lightbulb” in our homes, from a regular one to a government-approved one, which they claim will save hundreds of millions. You are also supposed to take a pledge : “I pledge to do my part to save energy
The US government’s hypocritical, ill-conceived legislation of accounting morality known as the Oxley-Sarbanes Act has sparked a “deregistration” movement among European and other non-US firms that have registered with US stock exchanges for listing of their shares. This is described in a Wall Street Journal article that reports a reversal of the
The report on the front page of today’s (Monday’s) Wall Street Journal of political correctness in natural science goes a long way to explain the penetration of the state and its agents into the science of economics. The wistful affectation of positivist economists to ape the physical sciences seems more misplaced than ever in light of this
The population of India is expected to eclipse that of today’s largest country, China, by about 2010. So the “social safety net” now being mooted in India will move that country down the road to collectivism by a vast quantum. The article in The Economist came complete with accounts of Victorian sensibilities in such matters from the reign of the
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.