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Henry Oliner
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July 4, 2019
Seeking Answers from the FoundersAmerican Dialogue – The Founders and Us by Joseph Ellis is a challenging effort by the noted American historian to compare selected issues today such as race, inequality, judicial boundaries, and foreign affairs with insights from the founders....
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November 1, 2017
Save the swamp?"Drain the swamp" has the memorable rhetorical flourish the president so effectively uses. It encompasses in three words the revulsion of his supporters to the accumulation of special interests he boldly seeks to undo. We should...
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October 27, 2017
The Democrats' PathologyFailing to defeat Trump in the election, the Democrats have worked endlessly to deflect their humiliation with denials, demonization, conspiracies, and pathological diagnosis. These are not new political tactics. Although they are amplified more, the...
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October 13, 2017
The fatal attraction of single-payerAdvocates for a single-payer health care system address legitimate concerns for the shortcomings of our prevailing system. They philosophically believe that a free market has limitations, especially in an area of such individual and social impo...
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March 22, 2017
Who should protect the little guy?I was watching Dianne Feinstein question Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Feinstein was calm, respectful, and informed, yet she remained focused on the issues that she as a Democrat values. This stands in contrast to Elizabeth Warren, Nan...
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March 2, 2017
Can we restore America's spirit of growth?One of the more disturbing possibilities is that our economic stagnation is not just the outcome of bad policies, but the result of a decay of the morals and spirit of risk and innovation. This is the subject of Tyler Cowen's new Complacent...
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February 4, 2017
It's not about TrumpIn office for only a couple weeks, the president has already sent the opposition into hysteria. They started before the inauguration and haven’t quit. Donald Trump’s new cabinet and his executive orders may have given them plenty...
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January 19, 2017
Has America Become an Illiberal Democracy?On last Sunday’s GPS show on CNN, Fareed Zakaria made an excellent presentation on the rise of illiberal democracies. Our constitutional liberalism inscribed by its framers rightly and deliberately constrained the elements of democracy, which t...
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September 29, 2016
Washington’s Short TermismIn the Wall Street Journal Vice President Joe Biden comments on "How Short-Termism Saps the Economy". He mirrors similar criticisms from the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. They complain that corporate incentive systems a...
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July 4, 2016
Entebbe: Another reason to celebrate July 4On June 27, 1976, Air France Flight 139, in route from Tel Aviv to Paris, had a layover in Athens. There four terrorists, two from a German group and two from the Palestinian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, hijacked the plane. ...
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June 20, 2016
The American IntifadaI made my first trip to Israel in 2003. Israel’s tourism had suffered from the Intifada as suicide bombers blew up pizza parlors and bus stops. Before we entered a mall, we were stopped for a security check by a young man in civilia...
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May 28, 2016
Making a Relic of the ConstitutionFor the last 100 years our grand political debate has centered on the tension between the principles and mechanics of the Constitution and the ideals of the Progressive movement. Under FDR the Progressives became known as liberals, but the term ...
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March 24, 2016
A Loud and Mighty Shift of Governing CoalitionsThe two parties have never been singular ideologically cohesive organizations, but a coalition of various governing philosophes and special interests. In parliamentary governments with numerous parties that each gain proportional representation...
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February 25, 2016
Donald Trump ushering in the third wave of ProgressivismThe Trump phenomenon is a new reality. It brings up flaws in the party system we have never encountered – the desperation of voters who think the system is broken, who abandon faith in the system and basic principles of a free-market or c...
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January 28, 2016
Legislating realityThere is a civil war in the Republican Party between the intellectual conservatives and the populists. The intellectuals highlighted by the National Review and its cadre of conservative writers and staff articulate the constitutional heritage a...
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November 15, 2015
Now that Plato Is Dead, Perhaps We Need More PhilosophersAt the recent Republican debate on Fox Business News, Marco Rubio got a cheer for stating, "For the life of me, I don't know why we have stigmatized vocational education. Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more we...
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December 1, 2014
Uber LibertariansUber is the rapidly growing transportation service that connects cars willing to provide rides for a fee with individuals needing a ride. It has addressed a need that the current highly regulated cab industry is failing to meet. Uber has a c...
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June 4, 2014
Everything That CountsThomas Piketty’s Capitalism in the 21st Century has been subjected to considerable commentary, critical and supportive, and is packed with historical data about the history of inequality. One may wonder if the considerable data in such a ...
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March 8, 2013
An Exhaustion of PessimismThe economy is improving and many of those that are critics of this administration have had a hard time reconciling this with their electoral victory. The very loose money and low interest rate policy of the Fed is undoubtedly having some positive ...
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March 4, 2013
Creating Stronger CommunitiesSmall businesses are still having a tough time and new business startups are at a record low. They are suffering from slow growth and a bad economic cycle and they bear a disproportionate share of the regulatory burden. Obamacare and a higher minimum...
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January 4, 2013
Stealing from CharitiesNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE I support the eliminat...
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November 29, 2012
A Tax Increase PrimerThe marginal tax is the dollar amount or percentage paid on an additional dollar in income. When you speak of increasing the tax rates you are referring to the increase in marginal rates. The effective tax is the actual dollar in revenue generated o...
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November 9, 2012
Hoping for ChangeI assumed the stock market would have already factored an Obama win and that it would not have seen the 400 point drop that occurred in the few days after the election. But before we use that retreat to confirm the upcoming disaster of Obama's contin...
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October 10, 2012
The Biggest LieWhen the intellectually and rationally bankrupt are out of ideas they default to immature and unashamed name calling. Those that merely disagree with the black president become racist, and any critical analogy can be construed to have racist in...
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September 29, 2012
Craftsmen of CapitalImagine a craftsman -- a woodworker. Over the years, he has developed considerable skill with various wooden structures: chairs, cabinets, tables, shelves, and similar furniture. His expertise allows him to construct excellent pieces with...
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September 4, 2012
When The Government Allowed the Capitalists to CareIn the 9/2/12 New York Times, Hedrick Smith wrote When Capitalists Cared. The article centered on Henry Ford's bold move to pay workers $5 a day, a high sum well above the market rates at the time, as an example of social justice missing from today's...
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July 17, 2012
What the Government Really Does for My BusinessPresident Obama is recycling and upping the Elizabeth Warren class warfare anti business screed. Not only has the small percentage that pays nearly all the taxes been criticized for not paying enough, we are now belittled for not even being res...
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June 6, 2012
Why I Sent Money to Scott WalkerDebbie Wasserman Schultz discounted the stinging Democrat union defeat in Wisconsin with reference to the out of state money sent to Scott Walker. She would be wiser (laugh) to recognize the significance of this statement. Why would I, a citize...
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March 5, 2012
How Big Government Conservatism Paved the Way to More LiberalismAs I sit on the sidelines watching the Republican party engage in a circular firing squad, and possibly missing the most important, and what should be the easiest, opportunity to reverse our course, I found myself reading Michael Tanner's...
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August 16, 2011
Is There Any Case for Revenue Enhancements?Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Is There Any Case for Reven...
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August 9, 2011
The Demons in the Democrats' MirrorThe minimum wage was raised from $5.15 to $5.85 in 2007, to $6.55 in 2008 and to $7.25 in 2009. From $5.15 to $7.25 is a 40% increase in three years. While the increase came after several years of stagnation, one has to have his head in the san...
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August 4, 2011
The Class War Rhetoric War on RealityA common fallacy of the class warfare rhetoric is to focus on the super rich to draw a conclusion that will impact the much less affluent; the working upper middle class sometimes called the 'working rich'. The drone on corporate jets is such a...
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June 24, 2011
Understanding Supply Side EconomicsIt has been derided as voodoo economics by George H.W. Bush and contemptuously as 'trickle down' economics by opponents from the left and some from the right. When Ronald Reagan embraced supply side economics many Republicans and Democrats were...
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June 21, 2011
Confusing the Myth and Reality of Job CreationAlan Binder writes in the Wall Street Journal Online, The GOP Myth of 'Job-Killing' Spending, June 21, 2011. In this article he challenges the argument that the deficit is killing job creation. He notes that logically one could argue that the taxes n...
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June 6, 2011
Will the Arab Spring Turn into Winter?Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ ta...
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March 30, 2011
The Discovery and Use of American ExceptionalismThere is more than irony in Obama's decision to attack Libya. The rationalization of the action speaks louder than the action itself. If the cause is humanitarian, then the question is what other oppressive dictators warrant missile and bombing attac...
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January 26, 2011
No Labels or No Ideas?Voters have become more resistant to affiliating with party labels because they have been so disappointed by the major parties themselves. There is a confusion over what the parties stand for, and this is made worse by an administration that en...
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November 27, 2010
The Immorality of Class Warfare"Boule de Suif" is a famous short story by French writer Guy de Maupassant about a group of passengers in a horse-drawn coach trapped behind Prussian lines during the Franco-Prussian War. The passengers include two nuns, an upper-class fact...
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November 8, 2010
Obama's Betamax PoliticsPresident Obama is blaming poor communication (in other words, marketing) for voters' rejection of ObamaCare. He should take a lesson from Sony, once but no longer be the king of consumer electronics.Some of the most instructive business failures hav...
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November 4, 2010
The Price of EqualityThe story of Facebook as told in the recent movie The Social Network left me thinking about the rapid rise of such companies and whether such extraordinary success is unique to the American economy and culture. Here is a company, started in a dorm by...
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September 20, 2010
Republican ChemotherapyLisa Murkowski in Alaska, Charlie Crist in Florida, and Mike Castle from Delaware all lost their bid in the Republican primary to non establishment or "Tea Tarty" candidates, and all have either refused to support their party's candidate ...
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September 12, 2010
Elitist Help for BusinessAs it becomes increasingly clear that the stimulus has failed, the president and his den of inexperienced elitists now conjure some new tricks, but from the same tired perspective . Tax credits for research and development (R&D) are clearly an...
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September 6, 2010
Time Magazine is Already Blaming Israel if Peace FailsNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
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August 16, 2010
Finding John GaltJohn Galt is the mysterious hero lurking in the background in Ayn Rand's infamous novel, Atlas Shrugged. He is the industrialist who went into hiding and led a strike of producers fed up with the physical and moral encroachment from a government of ...
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August 3, 2010
On charges of racism, what goes around, comes aroundNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
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July 24, 2010
The Worst of Both WorldsKarl Marx understood that capitalism is intrinsically productive but saw an inherent unfairness in any value other than that provided by labor. Marx also understood that individual incentives to produce would inevitably lead to overproduction and pai...
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July 19, 2010
The Ruling Class Creates its Own DemiseNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
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July 14, 2010
Fareed Zakaria Expects the Problem to Become the SolutionNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
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July 6, 2010
In Praise of Financial InequalityWhen citizens expect higher taxes and inflation they will shift from financial assets to tangible assets. One can enjoy jewelry, real estate, antique cars, new furniture, vacations, boats, art and collectibles without having to pay tax on their enjoy...
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July 1, 2010
Continents Apart in Economic IdeologyNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
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June 25, 2010
We need more than a change in partiesNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
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May 4, 2010
An Uncertain RecoveryWe are clearly in a recovery and many are using it to claim a victory on this administration's economic policies. I remain skeptical.This recovery comes on the heels of a serious drop in production. Once we realized that we were not going into ...
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April 16, 2010
The New AristocracyWhen Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of America in the early 19th century in his classic Democracy in America, he was comparing America's democracy to the declining norm in Europe: aristocracy.The European aristocracy, a landed aristocracy, ruled with in...
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April 5, 2010
Distractions used to hide Obamacare's failuresNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
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March 30, 2010
A primer on how high taxes will stifle investmentNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
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March 18, 2010
The best word to describe ObamacareNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
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February 2, 2010
Why Obama's tax incentives for small business will backfireNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
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January 30, 2010
Why Elitists FailWe expect those in government to know how to get things done. They need to understand organizational and political behavior, effective administration, and how to comply with the law.We do not expect or want elitists and moral supremacists who believe...
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December 26, 2009
The Iron Law of BubblesIn A Short History of Financial Euphoria (1993), J. K. Galbraith takes a brief look at financial bubbles and draws conclusion about the similarities among them. The most remarkable of the early manias was not in stocks, but in tulip bulbs. The value ...