Forgetting History: The Collapse of Penn Station and the Disaster of Government “Enterprise”: After decades of government disaster, isn’t it time for something new?
Amtrak’s Penn Station in New York City, once one of the most glorious cathedrals of commerce built by one of the most successful transportation companies in history, is collapsing. Tracks are in disrepair. That’s because they have not been properly maintained over decades since Amtrak, despite promises to the contrary at its founding in the…
Memorial Day—-A Dissenting View, Part 1: Honor the heroes, but also examine the causes of war
Here in the United States we have just celebrated Memorial Day, a day when we justly honor the men and women who fought in our myriad wars. And today in the United States, we perpetually seem to be in a war or on verge of fighting them. This is what revisionist historian Harry Elmer Barnes…
WHAT I’M READING: Bottleneckers: Gaming the Government for Power and Private Profit
By William Mellor and Dick Carpenter II, (Encounter Books, New York, 355 pages, $27.99) Private monopolies, when firms combine to try to rig markets through cartels, have been a concern of government economic policies since at least the anti-trust legislation of the late 19th century. But these attempts at cartels have failed again and again…
Mainstream Media Mediocrity: A Profile of NBC Nightly News—-Lying Brian Williams and a Clinton, outrageously overpaid, on the payroll. Part 2
The nonsense of NBC Nightly News—one of the most influential mainstream media institutions—has been going on for years. For instance, several years ago, they had to dump their anchor Brian Williams because he was a liar; he exaggerated, or what he said “misremembered,” his experiences during the Gulf War. Lying Williams and a Clinton on…
Mainstream Media Mediocrity: A Profile of NBC Nightly News No bureau in Paris? Or Caracas? Or God knows where else? Part I
Tens of millions of Americans exclusively depend on network television news in how they view the world. And, given the superficial, biased nature of much of NBC News, that is too bad. That’s because many of these mainstream media news operations—NBC, ABC, CNN and CBS—aren’t very good. Reporting is often based on rewrites of print…
What to Do with Twenty Five Thousand Dollars: Some commonsense strategies on how to invest a windfall or make it last
Recently a friend asked me what to do with $25,000. He didn’t tell me if he wanted to invest it for growth or make the money last as long as possible. There are a number of ways to work with an unexpected windfall. Here is one possible scenario. Funds Can Make Sense I would recommend…
