Archive for the 'Economics' Category

Driving the ranchers off the land, part 1 of 6

Tuesday, July 1st, 2014

(NOTE: a condensed version of this report appears in the Autumn, 2014 issue of “Range” magazine, on newsstands now.) After years of bluff, bluster, and one-sided hearings in the federal courts (whose politically appointed judges never answer any of the ranchers’ questions about the limits of federal jurisdiction) the federal Bureau of Land Management this […]

The ‘government shutdown’

Monday, October 21st, 2013

My mom called me the other day to ask whether I thought the “government shutdown” would impact some state program or other. I can see how the thought arose, given that there are hardly any independent “state programs” any more (most having fallen victim to the siren call of “supplemental federal funding,” which leaves them […]

Margaret Thatcher, freedom fighter, at 87

Wednesday, April 10th, 2013

The discredited Left can find little to say, save that she was “divisive.” How refreshing, then, to hear the enthusiasm in the equally widespread reports that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who died Monday at age 87, managed in her remarkable 11-year tenure at Downing Street to vanquish socialism and restore the free market […]

‘Sustainable’? Tell me your time frame

Sunday, April 7th, 2013

A regular reader writes in to protest my assertion that America now has enough proven fossil fuel reserves to last for centuries, warning “Fracking technology isn’t sustainable.” As with other shorthand terms designed to eliminate case-by-case by analysis, when “unsustainable” comes to mean merely “bad,” the results can get silly.

Blocking new jobs, blocking the recovery

Saturday, March 23rd, 2013

What’s slowing down job creation in Nevada, where the real unemployment rate — counting part-timers who would prefer full-time work, and those who’ve given up looking — averaged 20.3 percent in 2012? One prime suspect is ObamaCare, with its mandate that employers with 50 full-time employees or more must offer health insurance — not just […]

And you thought you could trust them to give it back?

Sunday, February 17th, 2013

A reader — one of many similar — recently wrote in to complain “They tell us that Social Security and Medicare are broken. The fact is the government used that money for wars and should have left the money in the so-called lock box. … I’m incensed that those programs are called entitlements. I paid […]

Obama turns focus to destroying economy

Friday, February 15th, 2013

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday, President Barack Obama made a few favorable references to his erstwhile opponent, Mitt Romney, the guy who four months ago was such a heartless cad that he “didn’t even care” that some woman got sick and died years after she left a company that Bain Capital took […]

The ‘military designed’ weapon

Sunday, January 27th, 2013

I see where freshman Nevada Congressman Steven Horsford, the Democrat who believes big oil companies receive subsidy checks signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, but who at least is no longer in the position to call last-minute weekend meetings at the Nevada State Senate to shift state moneys out of public-school budgets and into […]

Another excuse for statism bites the dust

Sunday, October 28th, 2012

As I was leaving for work one morning last week the recycling truck came hurtling down the street. Only one family in our immediate neighborhood, so far as I can tell, dutifully sorts their glass, plastic, and other stuff into the red, white and blue bins. The trashmen throw the contents of all three into […]

Administration plans 100,000 new highway deaths

Sunday, September 9th, 2012

It’s wonderful what the government can accomplish with a little gentle arm-twisting, especially after it’s set an example by seizing control of General Motors (rather than allowing an orderly bankruptcy, which would have allowed the outfit to escape its crippling labor contracts) and turning over part ownership of that once proud industrial giant to the […]