Economics

Peter Thiel, who founded PayPal in 1999 and sold it to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, knows something about entrepreneurship. Among other things, he knows that entrepreneurs do not always need a college degree to succeed—for example, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Ralph Lauren, and Mark Zuckerberg dropped…

When government systematically confiscates wealth from producers and gives it to “welfare” recipients who didn’t produce it, should we be surprised that many recipients of the loot acquire a looter mentality? Consider recent events involving a glitch with the computer system handling the electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards for the…

Yesterday Barack Obama nominated Janet Yellen as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, to replace Ben Bernanke next February. Yellen has been vice chair to Bernanke since 2010 and will likely win approval from the Senate. The first important thing to realize about Yellen is her ideology and…

Leftist media including PBS and Slate are jumping all over themselves to publish or review the work of Mariana Mazzucato, who claims (writing for Slate) that “the state, not the private sector, [is] the most decisive player” in developing “pioneering technologies.” It’s easy to see why leftists want to promote…

Rebecca Cullers of Adweek claims that marketer and so-called “consumer advocate” Alex Bogusky has a “foolproof way of bringing back 1 million U.S. jobs.” Bogusky says in a YouTube video, “It’s as simple as this: Every time you buy something, ensure it was made in America.” He immediately backs off…

In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “Targeting the Wealthy Kills Jobs,” T. J. Rodgers, founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, addresses some causes and consequences of today’s culture of envy. “The American dream has traditionally been one of individual success that is rewarded and admired,” writes Rodgers. “But…

Michael Dahlen reviews The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy—How to Save Yourself and Your Country, by Peter D. Schiff.

Richard Salsman answers a letter about central banking.

Now this promises to be a world-changing development: Google plans to launch blimps and other “high-altitude platforms” above sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia to bring the internet wirelessly to a billion or more additional people, the Wall Street Journal reports. With what will these people access the internet? Google is…

Explains why central banking should be terminated and how it can be, focusing primarily on the U.S. Federal Reserve System.