Economist Bill Peterson passed away yesterday at the age of 91. I had enjoyed running into Bill at Washington events from the late 1980s onwards. He always had a hearty smile and a sparkle in his eyes. His buoyant joy of life was difficult to reconcile with his devotion to the “dismal profession.” Bill wrote […]
Author Archive | Jim
New Book on Post-World War Two Brutal Expulsions of Germans
Yale University Press will soon be releasing Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans After the Second World War. The author, R. M. Douglas, had an excerpt essay in last week’s Chronicles of Higher Education that is stunning: Between 1945 and 1950, Europe witnessed the largest episode of forced migration, and perhaps the single […]
Wash. Times: Dollars for Smiles – Happiness Mischief from Uncle Sam
Washington Times June 15, 2012 Dollars for Smiles: Government Seeks Happiness Index by James Bovard The Obama administration is financing research to devise a new gauge for measuring Americans’ happiness. A National Academy of Sciences panel is analyzing proposals for surveying Americans’ “subjective well-being.” But there are grave perils in any “national happiness index” Uncle […]
Seizure Fever: The War on Property Rights
The Foundation for Economic Education cited a 1996 piece I did for the Freeman as today’s “timely classic.” So… once more around the track – The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty Seizure Fever: The War on Property Rights by James Bovard • January 1996 • Vol. 46/Issue 1 Mass confiscation has become politically fashionable. Politicians […]
But not all Libertarians have Diabolical Smiles
Abolish the Postal Monopoly
from the March issue of the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Freedom Daily… ABOLISH THE POSTAL MONOPOLY by James Bovard Since the 1840s, it has been a federal crime to provide better mail service than Uncle Sam chooses to provide. The Postal Service has a monopoly on first-class mail delivery (with a limited exemption for urgent, […]
MP3 Podcast of Today’s Brian Wilson interview on FBI and Disability Quotas
WSPD’s Brian Wilson and I had a fun 15-minute chat this afternoon about the FBI’s long history of rising above the law. We saved a little tar for the Labor Department’s proposed hiring quota for disabled job applicants. Brian mentioned how the government’s definition of the disabled continues expanding. I said I was looking forward […]
