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ARI News

ARI in the Debate: A Brief Update

On November 4, 2014, ARI fellow Don Watkins gave his talk “End the Debt Draft: How the Welfare State Is Exploiting Millennials” to the Capitalism and Global Supply Chains class at Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.
Government And Business

End the Debt Draft: How the Welfare State Is Exploiting Millennials [Video]

If nothing is done, the bill for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will bankrupt Millennials and their children. But support for these programs is strong among the elderly and the young alike. In this talk delivered as part of ARI’s Road to a Free Society tour, best-selling author Don Watkins argues that this support is based on a handful of myths, and that if Americans knew the truth about the welfare state, they would not want to save it — but abolish it.
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

Policy Digest: Welfare State Edition

You may have heard about “inversions,” which have become a hot topic of debate in the wake of Burger King’s acquisition of Tim Hortons. Megan McArdle provides some much-needed context for that debate (although my jaw dropped when I got to her line about “what you owe the government that raised you”). Cato Institute scholar and Debt Dialogues guest Dan Mitchell has more.

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.”
View Article
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.
View Article