Jonathan Miltimore is the Editor at Large of FEE.org at the Foundation for Economic Education.
In 1940, Victor Records released the Dust Bowl Ballads, an album of songs written and performed by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. In two volumes and a dozen songs, the folk legend sang about the droughts that plagued North America in waves beginning in 1934 and ending in 1940. On the 14th day of April...
Last fall a reader reached out to journalist Rachel Cohen and confessed that she didn’t know what she could do to fight homelessness. “I often feel helpless to enact change,” the reader wrote to Cohen, a policy correspondent who covers social policy for Vox. Cohen had written about homelessness for years, and she knew organizations...
In his popular 1971 book Rules for Radicals, Saul D. Alinsky identified ridicule as the most potent of all political weapons. “There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule,” said Alinsky, a Chicago-based community organizer and activist. Ridicule is the recipe for Matt Walsh’s new documentary Am I a Racist?, a film...
In January, Axios reported a developing trend in corporate America: corporations across the United States were backing away from DEI, which had become a “minefield” for companies. Following a multi-year boom in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion space following the 2020 death of George Floyd, corporations were pulling back on DEI initiatives. The risks were...
I recently drove to the local KFC and ordered a 12-piece meal to go. The price was just under $50 (tax included). Fortunately, I had a coupon that saved me some money, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel some sticker shock. Inflation has of course been a major issue in recent...
In February, a stream of tractors driven by Italian farmers arrived at the outskirts of Rome, horns blaring. The scene, which was captured by the Agence France-Presse, was just one of dozens of protests across Europe against EU regulations that farmers said threatened to put them out of work. “They’re drowning us with all these...
Across the world, people are struggling under the specter of inflation. In Venezuela, the inflation rate is 360 percent. In Argentina, it’s 160 percent. In Turkey, inflation is about 50 percent, about 10 percent higher than its neighbor Iran. In Europe, inflation of the euro has finally cooled to about 3 percent, down from more...
My family got a PlayStation 5 a few years ago. It’s a decision I sometimes regret because my youngest son, who is 7, likes to play it too much. (And that’s when it gets unplugged and stashed away.) But it’s easy to forget what a modern marvel the PS5 is. When I started playing video...
The Biden administration recently rolled out new emissions regulations that the New York Times said will “transform the American automobile market.” In what the paper called “one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is mandating that a majority of new passenger vehicles sold in America be...
In an explosive new op-ed, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) claimed that at least 15 separate federal agencies knew that attempts to create a COVID-19-like coronavirus were being undertaken at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as early as January 2018. Yet, heads of these agencies did not reveal this information to the public; for years, they...
John Joseph Mearsheimer recently summed up in a single sentence why Julian Assange should go free. “Journalists don’t go to jail for publishing classified information in the United States,” Mr. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said in a recent video. There has been endless ink spilled on Mr. Assange, whose lawyers...
Gore Vidal once said “I told you so” are the four most beautiful words in the English language. Perhaps this is why it’s difficult to resist sharing new data that show how Sweden’s much-maligned pandemic response was right after all. For those who’ve forgotten, Sweden was excoriated by corporate media and US politicians for its...
For years, my daughter, who is 12, has asked to have a room in the basement. My wife finally relented, and the two of them recently gave a fresh paint job to what will be her new room on the lowest level. I’m relieved they got the job done quickly, because a new bill (SF...
There’s a famous scene in Seinfeld in which George passes on a TV pilot deal with NBC, only to later accept for less money than originally offered. “In other words, you held out for less money,” Jerry says after George tells him the deal. “You know the basic idea of negotiation, as I understand it,...