As an economist, I eschew the soft-headed convenience of ready-made ideologies, together with their carrying rationalities, turning upon intellectual vulgarities I haven’t the stomach to bear. But even when we look askance at ideologies, focusing instead upon flinty economic facts evidenced in history, a certain resolve may be expressed without overstatement:

1. Markets are the best means to capture the wisdom of individuals acting in their own interests.
2. Taxes should be moderate, clear and specific, to afford business and individuals the most efficient options for planning investment and economic activity.
3. Regulations should be specific and not speculative; written with sufficient flexibility to address new situations, with a clear, speedy review process to put right such anomalies as may arise from human action.
4. Under this framework, capitalism provides, not merely, the most efficient means of producing prosperity for the largest possible number of persons, but also the best means by which those without it may acquire capital, by which they too can become more direct authors of their won prosperity.
5. So long as the above is true, the well-off, the well and the not-so-well-off can co-exist in social harmony, because there is the belief that with application and diligence anyone who is not well-off may become so, within the system as described.

There are further elegant truths in history offering wisdom by which clear thinking on these questions may be maintained, advanced and reinforced:

1. Too aggressive a tax rate offends the sense of accomplishment of those who toil for their own prosperity; increasing the feeling that the fruit of their labours is being apportioned by an unaccountable few for the sake of an increasing many.
2. The habitual debasement of the currency undermines the assumption of value, which instigated the resolve to labour for oneself, in the first instance.

(more…)

Part one of a series

In researching the ever-intensifying Massachusetts Senate race between Democrat Martha Coakley and her Republican challenger Scott Brown, it only takes a few keystrokes to unearth her ongoing history of questionable judgment and puzzling prosecutorial decisions.  Even though the election has been effectively nationalized, with some polls showing the underdog Brown within two points or so of the colorless Coakley, she remains largely unknown outside New England.

So as a public service to the voters of the Bay State, during the run-up to the special election on Jan. 19, Big Journalism will be offering some of the Martha’s Greatest Hits, so that they can fully make up their minds whether she would make a suitable successor to the late Edward Moore Kennedy – who, as you recall, began his illustrious career by being expelled from Harvard for cheating, went on to drown Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick, and then turned to a life of drinking and debauchery, including the infamous “waitress sandwich” with soon-to-be-retired Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, before attempting to inflict “universal health care” on the country shortly before his death last year.

You can read all about Ted here in this classic profile of the last and worst of the Kennedy brothers by the late Michael Kelly.  Be sure to read the whole thing, just to get a flavor of the kind of candidate Massachusetts voters seem to like.

Homework done?  Good.  Because Martha Coakley, the current Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and thus its top law enforcement officer, is shaping up as a worthy heir to the Lion of the Senate.(more…)

WorldNetDaily reports:

Just one week before Michael Savage was scheduled to debate via video link at the Cambridge Union in England, the co-presidents of the two-century-old society informed the top-rated radio host they have canceled the event.

As WND reported, the invitation from the Cambridge Union Society for the Oct. 15 debate was issued in July after Savage was banned from entering the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government along with Muslim extremists and leaders of hate groups.

In an e-mail today to Savage producer Beowulf Rochlen, Cambridge Union leaders Julien Domercq and Jonathan Laurence wrote, “It is with great regret to inform you of the difficult decision we have taken to cancel the event.”

Domercq and Laurence pointed to problems with the cost and feasibility of setting up the necessary video link, but they also cited “legal issues.” (more…)

(San Francisco, CA) Michael Savage, ’shock-jock’ author of over 25 books with a radio audience of 10 million listeners who was banned from entering the United Kingdom in May by Gordon Brown will argue against the insanity of ‘political correctness’ on Thursday, October 15 at 8:00pm GMT. Savage will appear via internet link to argue his case for freedom of speech.

Quoting Winston Churchill, who said, “You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse – a little tiny mouse! -of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic…” Savage will attempt to ’save England from a descent into mental slavery where petty bureaucrats dictate what can and cannot be discussed.” (more…)