Planning, welfare statism, and the curse of the awful New Dealer Rexford Guy Tugwell.

If China’s leaders pile more “expert” central planning on top of their already mile-high pile, a busted stock market will be one of the least of their long-term worries.

The world in the 21st century is beset with economic fallacies that are, for the most part, modern versions of those that Bastiat demolished 16 decades ago. 

If you produced the same results while advocating capitalism, you’d be reckoned a monster.

In an important sense, free economies don’t have “architects.” However, the “planned chaos” of socialist economies has lots of architects. Some are well-meaning busybodies eager to knead other human beings like dough on a social kneading board. Others are presumptuous con artists who savor the power their plans require. John James Cowperthwaite knew the folly of central planning.

Entrepreneurship survives on streets named for Communists — from the Mackinac Center’s Michael Van Beek.

Good intentions are not enough. Nowhere near enough, in fact. Other things matter too, such as reason, logic, moral principles, evidence, outcomes, history and experience, reality and facts.

Profit is responsible for more good things—by a long shot—than all the charity in the world.

A “Bill of Rights Day” is not on the calendar, but a free people don’t have to wait for Congress to declare a holiday to celebrate one. On December 15, take a moment to reread the Bill of Rights and reflect on its importance. Call it to the attention of friends and family. 

A currency’s value is not bottomless. Its erosion must cease either because government stops its reckless printing or prints until it wrecks the money. 

The 1932 election is perhaps the best example of the rule that prevails all too often in the political world: You get what you voted against.

By this logic, draining the country of all goods and accepting none from abroad would be the best possible trade news. We wouldn’t be able to celebrate, however, because we’d all starve. But at least the government’s books would register one heck of a trade surplus.

Don't expect Washington to fix the fundamentals when it's time horizon ends with the next election. In the perverse world of politics, problems don't get solved as much as they get perpetuated. 

There’s nothing about government that makes it less “greedy” than the average guy or the average institution. Indeed, there’s every reason to believe that adding political power to natural self-interest is a surefire recipe for magnifying the harm that greed can do. 

Coercive measures that aim to redistribute wealth prompt the smart or politically well-connected “haves” to seek refuge in havens here or abroad, while the hapless “have-nots” bear the full brunt of economic decline. 

Which is better for business, a friendly overall environment with no special favors or an unfriendly environment offset by “incentives” for particular firms or certain activities?

Statism can be summed up and slapped on the back of a car. Can the freedom philosophy?

Whoever warned us to beware of Greeks bearing gifts apparently never met a congressman.

The history of progress in ideas provides few examples of wrong-on-everything transforming into right-on-everything in a momentary leap. We must be patient, inviting, and understanding.

You don’t check your character at the door when you go to work for the government. That means that the legal-political system is itself a reflection of the character of those who made the laws and those who are employed to carry them out.