Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 46]: Lawrence W. Reed on Myths of Progressivism

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Lawrence W. Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, on his new book Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Topics covered include: the inherent conflict between economic equality and political equality, how the minimum wage actually hurts the people it is supposed to help, why government spending doesn’t lead to prosperity and how to effectively defend capitalism.
Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 41]: Jared Meyer on Washington’s War on the Young

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Jared Meyer, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and co-author of Disinhereted: How Washington Is Betraying America’s Young on how the regulatory-welfare state is harming younger Americans. Topics covered include: the failure of the government education system, the true cost of government entitlements and regulatory barriers to opportunity.
Government And Business

Policy Digest: Welfare State Edition

Michael Tanner: “[M]ore than one out of every three Americans live in households that are now on welfare. Looked at another way, America’s welfare state now has nearly three times the population of the largest actual state. . . . And none of these numbers include the middle-class social-welfare programs like Medicare and Social Security. Counting these programs, more than 153 million Americans, nearly half the population (49.5 percent), are living in households now dependent on government for a significant portion of their income.”
Government And Business

Governing Right Out of Atlas Shrugged

Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, published a hard-hitting op-ed in the Orange County Register over the weekend. It’s a timely follow-up to his viral 2009 Wall Street Journal column drawing parallels between the collapsing economy in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged and the chaotic world of Washington politics at the height of the financial crisis.
Government And Business

Throwing your fellow businessmen under the minimum wage bus

I do not think a business leader should ever ask the federal government to raise the minimum wage. An executive like Jelinek is completely free to pay all of his employees above the current minimum wage — and he does. Jelinek argues that this is good for his business. It might be. Regardless, shouldn’t this be something that every business leader is free to decide for himself?

Further Reading

Ayn Rand | 1957
For the New Intellectual

The Moral Meaning of Capitalism

An industrialist who works for nothing but his own profit guiltlessly proclaims his refusal to be sacrificed for the “public good.”
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Ayn Rand | 1961
The Virtue of Selfishness

The Objectivist Ethics

What is morality? Why does man need it? — and how the answers to these questions give rise to an ethics of rational self-interest.
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