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• Children's Health Plan Is Back
  fee.org > resources > childrenaposs-health-plan-is-back
  FEE.org Web Bot | Friday, October 26, 2007
  “The House passed a revised children's health proposal Thursday, but not by the two-thirds margin that supporters will need if President Bush vetoes the measure as promised. The 265-142 vote was a victory for Bush and his allies, who urged House Republicans to reject Democrats' claims that changes to the legislation had met their chief concerns. If the same vote occurs on a veto override attempt, Bush will prevail, as he did earlier this month when he vetoed a similar bill.” (USA Today, Friday)
  
  Political jockeying won't free the health-care market.
  
  FEE Timely Classic
  “Healing America: The Free Market Instead of Government Health Care” by Jane M. Orient
• Atlas Shrugged and the Corporate State
  fee.org > articles > atlas-shrugged-and-the-corporate-state
  Sheldon Richman | Friday, October 12, 2007
  This week marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Ayn Rand's stunning novel, Atlas Shrugged. So many words have been written about the book that the task of saying something new is daunting. It is a celebration of the creativity that is required for the production of material goods no less than for the production of music, art, and literature. And it is an elaboration of the precondition for that creativity: individual freedom, which necessarily includes property rights. In sum, Atlas Shrugged is a literary brief for the proposition that human beings can live fully as human beings only in a society founded on the freedom philosophy, i.e., on self-ownership, private property, privacy, consent, free trade, and peace — in a phrase, laissez faire. What sometimes goes unappreciated by readers of the novel is the extent to which Rand targeted business people as potentially the most egregious saboteurs of freedom. More . . .
  

  A NEW article by Sheldon Richman

  
  

• Water Supplies Affected by Ethanol Production
  fee.org > resources > water-supplies-affected-by-ethanol-production
  FEE.org Web Bot | Thursday, October 11, 2007
  “When it comes to solving the fossil fuel crisis, it seems like every silver lining comes accompanied by a dark cloud. As attention turns more and more toward using corn and other products to produce ethanol for fuel, experts warn that increased production of these crops could pose a threat to the nation's water supplies.” (USA Today, Thursday)
  
  Picking winners.
  
  FEE Timely Classic
  “Ethanol versus the Poor” by P. Gardner Goldsmith
• Poll Shows Opinion Against Free Trade
  fee.org > resources > poll-shows-opinion-against-free-trade
  FEE.org Web Bot | Thursday, October 4, 2007
  “[A] new poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal shows that, as expected, 60% even of Republicans think free trade is bad for America.” (Tax-news.com, Thursday)
  
  Back to square one.
  
  FEE Timely Classic
  “What Free Trade Really Means” by Jeffrey Herbener
• “Get the Job Done” on Global Warming, Bush Says
  fee.org > resources > get-the-job-done-on-global-warming-bush-says
  FEE.org Web Bot | Monday, October 1, 2007
  “President Bush, telling a climate conference it was time to 'get the job done,' on Friday called for setting specific goals by next summer for reducing greenhouse emissions blamed for heating up the climate. He also called for the creation of a new global fund to promote clean technology.” (USA Today, Monday)
  
  Government's the last group of people to trust on the matter.
  
  FEE Timely Classic
  “Global Warming and the Layman” by Sheldon Richman
• The Goal Is Freedom: Pundit in Wonderland
  fee.org > resources > the-goal-is-freedom-pundit-in-wonderland
  Sheldon Richman | Friday, September 28, 2007
  In one of those boilerplate articles about the deteriorating American middle class, Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson points out that a new Pew Research Center survey reveals that an increasing number of people think we live in a country divided into “haves” and “have-nots” and that more people now put themselves in the second group. Have and have-not what exactly? Meyerson has little to say about that rather obvious question beyond mentioning job stability and retirement security, as though being without those things is equivalent to being in poverty. Nevertheless, he offers an explanation for why Republicans are more reluctant than Democrats to acknowledge this great division in our land: “Apparently, so great is Republicans' loyalty to the Bush presidency that they're willing to overlook their own experience. And, in many cases, to attribute the nation's transformation solely to immigration, rather than to the rise of a stateless laissez-faire capitalism over which the American people wield less and less power” (emphasis added). Excuse me? More . . .
  

  A NEW article by Sheldon Richman

  
  

• A Chip Off Old Big Brother's Block
  fee.org > articles > a-chip-off-old-big-brotheraposs-block
  Sheldon Richman | Friday, September 21, 2007
  Late last month the California Senate and Assembly sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill to prohibit employers from requiring workers to have RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips implanted under their skin. North Dakota and Wisconsin already have passed similar laws. Two other states are considering bans. VeriChip (motto, appropriately: “RFID for People”) already has FDA permission to sell a device suitable for human implantation. Some people find this form of ID attractive because it can't be lost or, presumably, counterfeited easily. (We'll see about that.) But others, especially organizations dedicated to protecting privacy, object to treating other people like pets. What should an advocate of liberty think of all this? More . . .
  

  A NEW article by Sheldon Richman
  

• The Goal Is Freedom: A Chip Off Old Big Brother's Block
  fee.org > resources > the-goal-is-freedom-a-chip-off-old-big-brotheraposs-block
  Sheldon Richman |
  Late last month the California Senate and Assembly sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill to prohibit employers from requiring workers to have RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips implanted under their skin. North Dakota and Wisconsin already have passed similar laws. Two other states are considering bans. VeriChip (motto, appropriately: “RFID for People”) already has FDA permission to sell a device suitable for human implantation. Some people find this form of ID attractive because it can't be lost or, presumably, counterfeited easily. (We'll see about that.) But others, especially organizations dedicated to protecting privacy, object to treating other people like pets. What should an advocate of liberty think of all this? More . . .
  

  A NEW article by Sheldon Richman
  

• Insurance-Industry Subsidy Extended by House
  fee.org > resources > insurance-industry-subsidy-extended-by-house
  FEE.org Web Bot | Thursday, September 20, 2007
  “The House on Wednesday passed a 15-year extension of a program to aid the insurance industry in the event of a terrorist attack.” (USA Today, Thursday)
  
  Another bailout for big business.
  
  FEE Timely Classic
  “The Rent-Seeking Habit” by Sheldon Richman
• The Nation as an Object of Service
  fee.org > articles > the-nation-as-an-object-of-service
  Sheldon Richman | Friday, September 7, 2007
  What distinguishes the libertarian (liberal) spirit from its alternative is the conviction that free individuals who respect one another's sovereignty will generate and sustain a benevolent prosperous social order without direction from a central bureaucratic authority. Atomistic individualism never had anything to do with genuine liberalism, which is a social philosophy that looks to the cooperation inherent in the division of labor and free exchange to deliver its material and nonmaterial benefits. “The market” — the realm of consent, contract, and mutual accommodation — always was thought to include nonpecuniary relationships. Those who see heavy-handed government as the indispensable antidote for atomistic individualism have long beat up on that pathetic straw man. But atomistic individualism is something more than a straw man useful in the attempt to discredit liberalism. The critics of liberalism seem sincerely to believe that without a strong central authority, society would degenerate and dissolve, as though mere people — as opposed to “leaders” — are too benighted to “fend for themselves.” In this alternative worldview, centralized power is the glue that binds us together. For the liberal, no such glue was needed. The advantages of individualism embedded in social cooperation — call it molecular individualism — are too obvious to be overlooked. (Children spontaneously discover the gains from trade at an early age.) That shows how great the chasm is between real liberalism and all forms of illiberalism. More . . .

  A NEW article by Sheldon Richman